Boston reminds me a lot of Perth. It's clean, the people are friendly and 99% of the time I felt safe walking on the streets. The hostel was good and organised events every night so there was always a chance to meet people. Quincy Markets at Faneuil Hall come alive with buskers and people on the weekends and just a few blocks down a fruit and veg market lines the streets on Fridays and Saturdays selling everything from your basic green apply to hairy things that do not look very appealing at all!! I jumped aboard the Aquarium boat to go whale watching one morning thinking to myself, "it will be so good to get out on the water and breathe in some fresh ocean air." Well…let's just say majority of the time on the boat was spent inside due to the fact that after braving the cold wind for ten minutes I could no longer feel my face. The whales were amazing - two even came right up close to the boat to see what was going on and then swam right underneath our boat. They were humpback whales located in the Stelwagen Marine Reserve, which is about an hour out to sea from the Boston waterfront. I walked the Freedom Trail one morning to learn about Boston's history. There is a red line painted onto the sidewalk the whole of the trail so you simply follow the red line and learn as you go along. It start in Boston Common Public Gardens and ends in Charlestown after crossing the Charlestown Bridge. I loved Charlestown - it had a very warm, welcoming atmosphere and the houses are absolutely beautiful and there are so many trees and parks scattered around. It didn't seem like I was near a city at all. I did hostel activities on two of my nights in Boston and became good friends with a girl called Jane from Glasgow. The pubcrawl on Friday evening was tonnes of fun - spent way too much money but I had fun so it was worth it. My liver was suffering the next day though and so was my head! I went with Jane, Chad from Chicago and Anton from Russia. Jane and I decided that Chad was a bit arrogant after he proclaimed to us (both brunettes) that he only like blondes and he wasn't into any other music besides rap…mmm….no comment. Anton spoke English like he had just walked out the 18th Century or something. He had studied linguistics at university and therefore I didn't know if this was how he learnt to speak English or what. Asking him at the bar if he was having a good time he replied, "Do you have any reason to doubt my content?" I found it really hard to understand what he was actually trying to say most of the evening - between the accent and the old English it was fun trying to guess. He was also married and had left his wife at home as he was on a 'corporate' trip. I had good reason to doubt this…he was on a hostel pubcrawl….maybe he just needed to escape from his wife…who knows? I also went with a large group from the hostel to Wally's Jazz Club, which was amazing. Both of these nights ended with a piece of pizza at a place down the road from the hostel at 2:30am. I bought so many books in Boston - my bag is getting heavier by the minute! I found a second-hand bookshop called 'Brattle Books' which had a huge history section so I have added greatly to my collection of WWII holocaust memoirs. I spent hours in that shop wanting to buy everything but couldn't so most of the time was spent trying to decide which books to actually buy! I also visited the Harvard Bookshop also with an immense history section. I think I should just avoid these places due to the fact that it hurts my wallet too much! Harvard University is very different to how I imagined. Each building is built in the architecture of the time and therefore the university is scattered with allsorts of different buildings including the science centre, which is in my mind no doubt the most hideous building I have ever seen. We were lead on a tour by two actual Harvard students so it was interesting to hear the stories you wouldn't usually hear. A tradition at Harvard on the night before final exams starts is for everyone to gather in the quad and start a low murmur eventually building up to a high, loud pitched scream all the while running through the university butt naked! This is called the 'primal scream'. It is also considered lucky to touch the foot of the John Harvard statue but the students kindly informed us that Harvard students do things to this statute that you wouldn't want to go around touching. YUK! It was fun watching the Asian tour groups posing for photos with their hands on John Harvard's feet! Boston is hugely a student city - as well as Harvard there is Boston College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Berklee College of Music. The hostel I stayed in was near Berklee so I often saw groups of students sitting on the grass with their instruments out having a jam session. I attended the Beantown Jazz Festival while I was there which attracted over 70,000 people. I mainly watched the big band stage due to the fact that I wanted to watch the trumpeters. One in particular was Charles Tolliver and man, oh man could he play! It was absolutely brilliant and he did it effortlessly. I tried to see if I could meet him after his performance but unfortunately couldn't. I think he would have been there until next century if 70,000 people all wanted to meet him! My last night in Boston I met a girl by the name of Phillipa from Canterbury in the UK. She was an absolutely history buff and I learnt so much from her. We sat in the kitchen for hours drinking tea and discussing the various aspects of history that we were interested in. She is also a writer so I had so many questions to ask her which was answered quite happily and with great enthusiasm. She also mentioned various books that I should read and even suggested that I should go and study history at Canterbury University if it's something I'm really interested in. They have actual history degrees instead of just Arts with a history major so it is something I may look into later in my life. My next stop is Chicago, Illinois after a 23hour train journey on Amtrak's Lakeshore Limited so until then I'm outta here!