Firstly, I have to apologise for the photograph on this postcard, as the site did not have a single photograph of Boston, so I had to use one of Washington. I was hoping that the majority would not notice, but beiiing so honest, I had to fess up!! The Chinatown bus dropped us in Boston at around 3pm, and I don't need to tell you that following the antics of the previous evening we were both very tired and just wanted to find the hotel and breath a sigh of relief. I had booked the Park Plaza hotel, which was 4*, but managed to get a very good deal on it, so it was a great relief to find it was lovely. Found the hotel OK and fortunately for me, I could just dump my rucksack, kick off my shoes and flop on the bed. Daniel, however, had to be straight out the door to go and see Madonna in Worcester, which was about an hour's train journey from Boston. As much as the concert would have been cool, there was nothing that was going to peel me off the Egyptian cotton sheets (or at least that what they felt like to me)!! The next day, we headed out to meet Laura and Sharon, who I had met in Toronto. Really lovely girls, and by a pure twist of fate were in Boston at the same time as us. We went for lunch and a stroll up and down the markets, and then bought what must have been the biggest bottle of vodka in the USA!! We took the vodka (and mixers) back to the hotel room and got a deck of cards out. Learnt lots of new games, which will stay with me forever - s***head, scabby queen, to name but two! A whole bottle of vodka later, we had all passed out on the massive beds that were in the room, so it seemed sensible not to let the girls go back to their hostel. They had to leave in the morning to get their train (or bus) to their next destination. "Hope you made it OK girls and thanks for a great night!" The rest of our time in Boston was spent doing some sightseeing. The nightlife wasn't the best in our side of town, so we didn't bother with any of that, but we did go to a few nice restaurants thanks to the unexpected bonus I received from BT!! I was chuffed to bits - thanks BT!! I'm sure that many of you were disappointed with yours, but I was absolutely made up! That will see me through a couple of moths worth of travelling. As well as restaurants, we spent time down at the marina, went to the Aquarium, the park, saw Spiderman 2 on the first night of it's release and did an amphibious tour of the city on a vehicle which could drive on water and land! One day, we booked a boat over to Provencetown in Cape Cod, which was lovely. PTown (as the locals call it) is a wonderful place and may have well been a million miles away from Boston. It had a very colonial feel to it and everyone was really friendly. We just wandered up and down the streets, poking our head into some of the quaint shops that they had there. Had the most fabulous steak sandwich for lunch and then for a quick pint before getting the boat back to Boston. Whilst in the pub, I was admiring the bar lady, thinking she seems very familiar to me. I thought to myself, I can't actually know her, so she must just remind me of someone I did know. I racked my brains for about an hour and Daniel thought I had lost the plot but I was adamant that I would get it in the end. Just before we were about to leave, the bar maid looked at me and said "Do I know you?", and in an instant, I had got it! She was a girl I had met on the Chinatown bus from NYC to Boston. The bus had stopped just an hour from Boston at a place called 'Manchester' and Katy (as I will refer to her from now on) was on a separate Chinatown bus going in the opposite direction, also stopped in Manchester for a pit-stop. Searching my pockets for a lighter and still drunk from the night before, Katy had spotted my pathetic flapping about and offered me a light. We had a brief conversation about where we were from (her parents being Irish) and then we went off in opposite directions on the bus. So, it's not entirely surprising that it didn't twig immediately that the lady serving our drinks in PTown would be the same one as the Chinatown Bus Girl. Once realising this, we missed our boat back to Boston, stayed in PTown drinking with Katy and got the last boat home. "Thanks for your kind hospitality Katy and I do hope that our paths cross again soon". After all that excitement in Boston, it was time for me to head off alone again, this time to Orlando, Florida (Go Micky!). Stephen xxx