After a much needed lie-in until 8am I got up and enjoyed the worst breakfast for a long time: gross shreddies-like cereal that were too sweet with too-sweet strawberry yoghurt. The stay at Lorne Park really has altered my attitude to hostel food, oh dear. Good job there's only a few more left.

I headed over to the information centre on Boston Common, avoiding the blokes in costume who were charging $12 for a tour of the Freedom Trail, instead opting for a $7 guidebook that I later noticed was ripped. A good souvenir though hopefully. The Freedom Trail is a red line painted or in bricks that runs through Boston taking you past the major historical buildings, such as the town hall in the picture, Bunker Hill, and the site of the Boston Massacre. More talk of the British misbehaving.

The walk there and back took me six hours, but that wasn't due to a lack of fitness, I just got distracted many times along the way. First stop was a souvenir shop opposite the old town hall where I bought some Cheers stuff: the bloke in the shop was surprised we even had Cheers at home. Good old Cheers, it would always be on at 9 on a Friday night, usually marked the time we arrived at Gran's after a three hour drive down in good old Jasper. Nostalgia, oh dear.

My next distraction was the market that Margaret had told me I HAD to go to. There's Quincy Market, and then the north and south markets. I only had a quick look on the way through, opting to buy stuff when I'd completed the walk rather than when I still had a couple of miles to do. I did see the Cheers replica bar though, and cut-outs of Norm and Frasier, didn't prop myself up at the bar unfortunately.

I passed another burial ground, the North Church, and then found the USS Constitution. They were doing it up so I couldn't go below deck without a guide, but I had a look around, mainly at the workmen who I'm sure were using bent beams. Who am I to say though. I had a look at the museum, watched the tacky video that berated Britain's attempts to take Constitution, oh dear. I had to try and avoid the donation box, quite a skill when the receptionist is watching you like a hawk. I find avoiding eye contact the key to escaping guilt-free. I'm on a budget, don't judge me.

After deliberating whether or not to walk the extra section up to Bunker Hill I made my way up there, glad I did as it was only an extra five minutes. The monument looked exactly like the Washington Monument, not sure if that's a coincidence, maybe I should look it up.

Back down the trail past the many more people walking up it who had made a later start, they should get up in the morning! I stopped back at the market, this time buying some lunch, as I was a little peckish. Saw the shop Maggie's Sweets so took a picture of that before opting for the New England clam chowder in a bread bowl. Bad choice: it wasn't brilliant, and I made the biggest mess possible trying to eat the bread as the chowder had been poured all over it. The twelve year-old girls standing opposite from me looked at me like I was the geek at school all over again: bad memories flooded back. Oh dear, oh dear.

Got over my school moment as the cool girls wandered off to find their teacher and went to a shop called the Boston Pewter Company. I did look at some knives that were pretty snazzy, but the salesman told me some were ivory and I walked away pretty swiftly. There were some very nice blown glass pumpkins there that had caught my eye, and after he'd chatted to me for a while I ended up buying one. Oh dear, so that's a backpack, two bags, and a glass pumpkin for the journey home. Good move. More talkative shop assistants in the Yankee Candle Company and I ended up buying some festive candles. I'm a shop assistant's dream, I really am. I must have mug tattooed somewhere one day.

I stopped off for a hot chocolate to assess my spending and thought a scotch may have been a better option, and in the process saw a Mexican man eating his bagel. He wasn't just happy-go-lucky eating it though, he was lifting his upper lip to force the bagel into his mouth in one piece. No biting it off, just forcing it in and then, once he'd crammed it in, dabbing around his mouth if he were a nineteenth century lady of leisure. Why do I always notice these people? It's a curse, a can't-help-but-look curse.

After recovering at the hostel and repacking my things once again I wandered down to Whole Foods to buy some dinner, opting for the old favourite of porridge and bananas, as well as some huge Sharon Fruit. Unfortunately the Sharon fruit were foul: I'm not sure if they'd been sprayed with something, but they made my mouth taste like Ghandi's sandal. Not nice. When I was eating I spotted a girl from the hostel in Washington D.C. and so ended up talking to her for a while. She'd been to Toronto and Montreal in the time since then. Another girl chimed in at the mention of fish and chips who was originally from Cheltenham but has lived in Ireland for eight years: she certainly picked up the lingo. The Irish girl has been on the go for eleven months. Crazy girl. She told us about kamikaze owls in Australia that seemed to love her windscreen, and I thought the sparrow we hit in New Zealand was traumatic.

A relaxed and pretty uneventful day, but I suppose it should be as I wind down for the flight home. Yikes.