Hayley & Shaun in Canada: Boston, MA & Hartford, CT

We are officially in the US of A!

Boston May 8th - 13th
Hartford May 13th - 14th

We arrived in Boston after a long, sleep-less night on a Greyhound bus from Montreal, of which a great deal of time was spent in customs where we ended up having to pay even more money for a visa that we already paid extra for! It did feel sad to leave Canada, where we had been for nearly five months but we were very excited to be in America and to experience the things we've always heard/seen and to see how it differs from Canada too. After arriving at the bus station we then went straight to our hotel that was in a suburb called Saugus and we were able to check in straight away and sleep for a few hours which was good. We woke up in the afternoon and checked out our local area. Unfortunately we weren't in the main downtown bit, but there was a shopping mall and some places to eat nearby which was the main thing.

The next day we headed into town on the local subway which was quite easy to get around on. We found a good 'hop-on-hop-off' tour of the Boston and Cambridge areas which included 2 days of tour and a 90-minute water cruise for a really good price. So we did the full loop of the tour to see as much as we could and then hopped off and saw some of the main city including Quincy Market, Boston Public Library and the U.S.S Constitution (an old navy boat that you could walk around on). We also enjoyed just looking at the architechture and the old buildings that made the area really nice.

The next day we took the tour to Cambridge and vistited Harvard University. The area and buildings were beautiful and everyone was very 'harvard' themed! There was a nice area to shop and walk around, and walking through the actual Harvard Yard was really lovely. We also did our harbour cruise that day that went around the main harbour so we could get a good view of the city, and it was fully-narrated as well. We had dinner at the 'Cheers' restaurant at Quincy Market too.

The next day we went back to Harvard and went on a free 2 hour walking tour of the university, run by actual students who were very funny and very good at the tour! We learnt a lot of interesting things and were told many things that you wouldn't otherwise find out! After that we went back into Boston and went to Boston Common Park and went on a swan boat on the pond (it was finally a nice day to this!) and we walked around the nice park for a while too. We then visited some old war graves that were so old you could barely see the writing on the headstones! We really enjoyed Boston as it was a big city, but the buildings and area were really nice and didn't feel over-populated and dirty!

The next day we headed back into town and boarded our train for an overnight stop in Hartford before heading into NYC. Unfortunately we didn't really get to see much of Hartford as we arrived late arvo and left at lunch time the next day and could only really walk to a small shopping area and not the main downtown area. We had a nice hotel room though and had a chance to do a whole heap of washing and sleeping!

We then hopped on another train and with a quick 10 min stop over in New Haven, we were on our way to New York City!

Sorry it's been so long since our last blog, I guess we've just been having so much fun! Stay tuned for our NYC blog in the next few days.

Hayley & Shaun xoxo