Where Everybody Knows Your Name

We had a fabulous first day in Boston. We met the infamous Petunia who was as purrfect as her reviews!

Our Air BnB host Pedro then kindly offered to take us to Harvard University as his guest (he is a researcher and assistant professor there) and give us a private tour. This was a real honour as we were able to access areas not open to the public such as the library (see photos) and the underground tunnels. The site is ginormous and as one would expect full of great architecture, history and a strong sense of importance. I feel smarter just for having spent a few hours there!

Pedro was full of great stories about the college and its history. My favourite was the one about the infamous John Harvard statue - known to the educated as 'the statue of 3 lies'. The 1st lie is that the year on the statue is wrong, the 2nd lie is that he wasn't actually the founder and the 3rd is that there are no records of what John Harvard actually looked like so the statue could be anybody! Despite all of this, tourists still flock to stand next to him and rub his left shoe for luck (see below).

After a little mooch around Cambridge we got on the subway and I headed for Fenway Park. I confess, I'm no true baseball fan but I did love Field of Dreams and I am a BIG Cheers fan so it just felt like the right thing to do. I managed to get on the last tour of the day and I'm really pleased I did. It had a great air about the place and I only wish I could have seen a game there.

Following my trip to the home of the Red Sox, I reunited with Kate at Boston Common. From there we headed for 'Cheers' itself. I have to admit, having watched the entire boxset with a certain someone from start to finish over the last 3 years, it was a bit emotional but I'm so glad we went. We opted to stay and eat there too. I even treated myself to a Mayday Malone cocktail.

We took the subway back to the house on a line headed for 'Wonderland'. Sadly our stop was before that so maybe that's somewhere for tomorrow. En route back to the house from Maverick station we went to check out the skyline from the nearby Piers Park (2 mins from our Air BnB). Needless to say it was spectacular. On our final meander home, we encountered a surfeit (yes I looked that up!) of skunks. Sadly it was too dark for me to take a picture. Naturally I did try but the first shutter release made its tail stand on end and so we scarpered quickly!

Tomorrow is the 4th July so much patriotism and fireworks awaits.Read more