Bawwwwston

When I chose my classes for my American Studies degree, I was, like any other student, picky about which periods in history I looked into more closely. I had a broad, if vague, understanding of the full history of the US (that is, from the Jamestown landing in 1607 onwards) but I never really studied the period before the Civil War in 1861 in much detail. Obviously I knew there was a revolution against the British ruling power, and that some guys chucked a lot of tea in Boston harbor, and that a white haired man called George Washington was the first elected President of the United States of America, etc etc. However, before the weekend just passed, I never really cared. That sounds bad I guess. Perhaps it’s a patriotic thing, me not wanting to know in minute detail how we got our asses handed to us by revolutionaries who were essentially descendants of the men they were rebelling against. I've also never really had that much interest in periods of history that are too old, an odd claim as a self-professed history lover maybe. Anyway, last weekend, I travelled up to Boston, and had a three day opportunity to immerse myself in the tales of revolution that had previously left me so uninterested.

One of the first things I liked so much about Boston was its age. The architecture was amazing; you could tell that it was an old city, much more like London or Oxford, where the old churches and restored houses are mish-mashed in amongst the new office blocks and high rises. There is a famous walk you can do in Boston called The Freedom Trail. That’s right, I said the word ‘walk’ and I was talking about a city in America! The Freedom Trail is basically a 2.5 mile long path through the city, which tells the story of Boston’s past through various significant sites and buildings along the way. It starts in Boston Common, which is just a big park in the middle of the city, and ends up at Bunker Hill, an infamous battle site which was considered the turning point of the Revolutionary War (note the turning point was not in our favour). Along the way there are churches, graveyards with notable people buried there, important buildings where the revolutionaries gathered to discuss rebellion, and the USS Constitution, a ship originally launched in 1797 which is still in use now, making it the oldest commissioned navy ship ever. Incidentally, it is most famous for its actions again the Brits in the War of 1812 where it apparently sunk 5 of our warships. Loved being surrounded by Americans when that story was told by the guide!

We did half of the trail on Friday afternoon, after lunch at WAGAMAMA!! There are only three Wagamamas in America, and they are all in Boston, so was very excited to have a katsu curry after so long! We then set off on the trail, feeling very satisfied with our full tummies, and I proceeded to take approximately 1 million photographs of everything in sight. I am not a very inconspicuous tourist. We went to the site of the Boston Massacre, which apparently happened when a mob attacked a British soldier in the 1770s and he and his soldier friends shot into the crowd to try and stop them, and killed five men in the process. Now I personally am not sure that five deaths constitute a massacre, nor am I sure that if this was to happen in present day America, that the soldiers would be the ones found guilty; they actually would most likely get off on self-defense, because that’s what everyone else seems to say when they shoot someone in order to get away with it. HOWEVER, it is not my story to tell, so I suppose if they call it a massacre, it was a massacre.

Anyhoo, we also went to the burial place of John Hancock and Sam Adams, who were both signers of the Declaration of Independence. We saw the oldest non-Puritan church in the US. I learned that Massachusetts was the first state to abolish slavery, which made me like it even more. We saw the meeting house where the rebels planned the Boston Tea Party, which for those that don’t know, was the dumping of millions of crates of tea into the harbor, rather than a small meal with finger sandwiches and scones. We also saw some other old buildings whose historical significance was not always clear to me, but whose photos I took anyway, because that’s the kind of person I am.

That evening we went to an AMAZING Italian restaurant, where I stuffed myself once again (lucky I’d done so much walking around to counter the eating-until-I-couldn’t-move attitude I so lightheartedly indulge in). Then we went back to the hotel, which was a historic site of its own, as it used to be the Boston jail! It’s been done up really nicely, but they've incorporated the building’s past too, which made it really cool inside.

I climbed that

The next day, Ian did some work while I went off touristing again; this was the day I saw the old navy ship and was reminded of its glamorous past as a Brit-killer. I also walked up to Bunker Hill, the battle site, which has an enormous needle monument on top. I was told by a naval officer at the pier where the ship was docked that the monument was nearly 300 steps high, so the equivalent of 15 storeys, and really tiring and hard to climb. Naturally, I decided to climb it, because even though the navy man would never know if I had done it or not, being stationed at a completely different site to the one which I was now heading towards, I still felt I had something to prove. 294 steps later, up a narrow spiral staircase with people passing me coming back down from the top, and I was feeling anything but triumphant. Claustrophobic, nauseous and a bit faint, yes, but definitely not triumphant. The top room was tiny; there were ten of us up there at one time and it was cramped. It doesn’t help that there is a circular metal grate in the middle of the room, probably a meter in diameter, which is there to cover the hollow center of the tower. It is a 220ft drop to the bottom, and you can see right down to the ground below through the thin grid – it’s a loooong way down. So everybody is not only squashed into this little room and fighting for breath from the climb up, we are also all trying not to be the one who has to brave the strength of such a small piece of metal, in case one of us happens to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It did not do well for my lightheadedness! On the climb down, I refused to let go of the rail, and if I passed people on their way up, to hell with them, they could be the ones to let go, and squeeze past me! (Chivalry is dead, OK?)

After a ten minute sprawl on the grass at the bottom of the monument, where I recovered from my climb and decided that mountaineering was not something to pursue as a hobby in the near future, I headed back to the hotel to change for the event which had been the reason to come up to Boston in the first place: Katie’s wedding! It was a gorgeous ceremony, up in New Hampshire, at a winery/vineyard. Katie obviously looked amazing, and it was a really fun evening.

Katie as a beautiful bride

On our final day up north in Yankee land, we went to Salem. Salem is pretty much only famous because in 1692, a group of little girls were caught by their strict Puritan minister playing and dancing in the woods near their houses. Dancing, or anything that might cause you happiness, was forbidden by the Puritans, so the girls pretended they had been possessed by the devil, and accused local women of being witches, and setting evil spirits upon them. There was a huge trial, and 19 people were hanged in total, with many more imprisoned for being witches. One man was crushed to death with rocks. We went to a museum where they reenacted the trial of one of the local women, then went down to a replica dungeon where the prisoners had been kept. Salem now thrives on its morbid past for tourism, much the same as Roswell, NM thrives on the fact that someone once saw a ‘UFO’ there. If anyone has seen or read Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’, that was based on the Salem witch hunts.

Our final stop before the airport back to Dallas was a trip to the beach! It was about 10 degrees outside so not sunbathing or swimming, but the Atlantic looked gorgeous, and there was a lighthouse so it looked very authentically New England. There was even a cute little man with a metal detector and a spade. Bless.

And thus concludes my trip to Boston. I really liked it there, it’s definitely in my top 5 American cities, although I’m yet to find one to knock Chicago off the top!

Hometime

So here I am, back in Dallas after a rather longer trip back home than anticipated. Home was wonderful. I hadn’t realized quite how much I had missed it until I got there, which is understandable I guess. Surprisingly, the weather was pretty nice on the whole, which certainly made leaving the glorious heat and sunshine in Texas easier!

Josh picked me up from the airport, which was lovely, although slightly anticlimactic as we somehow missed each other completely which resulted in me wandering round Terminal 3 looking for him for 15 minutes, only to find him standing at the arrivals gate after all, leaning on the barrier, waiting for me. I stood next to him and smiled, and he vaguely smiled back then turned to look at the arrivals door again. He didn’t even bloody recognize me! Obviously he did then turn back and it was fine, we laughed, but yeah, not quite the romantic reunion I’d anticipated after 4 months apart!

My first three weeks back consisted almost exclusively of trying to fit in seeing everyone, while making sure I spent a lot of time with Josh, and my family. There were people I didn’t manage to see, and some I only got to see once. It’s hard when everyone has jobs, and can only meet up in the evening; mum was still on summer holidays at first, so I could spend the daytimes with her, but after she went back, I spent a lot of time watching daytime TV!

My darling grandfather was diagnosed with cancer a few days before I went back to London. It kind of seemed fated that I was coming home at that time, to see him, just in case… Well, I could not have been more glad to be home, to see him, spend time with him, and make sure I got to say goodbye. He was taken into hospital about 10 days after I got back, and unfortunately, never left. It was not an easy time, but the whole family came to see him as much as possible, and the nurses were very patient with us when we broke the ‘only two visitors at a time’ rule. I got to see pretty much all of my extended family a lot more than I’d expected too, and despite the circumstances, and the fact that we were spending a lot of time in Watford General’s café ‘The Spice of Life’, it was still really nice to see them.

Sadly, after three weeks in hospital, and only 28 days after diagnosis, Babar passed away peacefully with my grandma and mum (his eldest) at his side. (FYI Babar was what my grandfather was nicknamed ever since my oldest cousin first started talking and couldn’t say Grandpa, so said Babar instead.) I was in Italy when I got the news, cried a LOT on Josh’s shoulder, and that evening we toasted our drinks in his honour. I was obviously devastated, but I knew he was at least out of his pain and misery; it had not been easy for him to remain in the hospital that long. At least he is at peace now.

Italy had been wonderful until that point - gorgeous weather; amazing food and wine and rum and pretty much anything else with an alcohol percentage on the bottle; a lovely little apartment in small town Tuscany, close to the beach. That last point was actually a massive point of contention for us. I don’t know if anyone else who has driven in Italy noticed this, but the Italians like their fun and games when it comes to road signs. They just stop signing a place after a while, y’know, for jokes. There were 3 beaches near us that we’d been recommended and were promised that they were all within a 15-20 minute drive. The first one took us an hour and a half to reach because all the signs for the bloody place just kept stopping, then we’d take a wrong turn, and end up about 15 miles from where we’d planned to be. No joke, you’d reach a roundabout and it would sign the town you wanted as left, then at the next roundabout, 100 metres later, there is NO SIGN FOR THAT TOWN! Absolutely ridiculous.

I obviously got badly sunburnt because, well let’s face it, I’m the whitest person you know. I was wearing factor 20 as well, so to add insult to injury, I burned through suncream, which I had been applying once an hour. (I’m so unbelievably white.) It was the kind of sunburn where I had to take cold showers every quarter of an hour to reduce my body temperature, but it was isolated to my chest, so at least I could still tan my legs while hiding my upper body under a parasol. Josh was mean about it, laughing while applying his factor 4 tanning oil, but then he got a bit burnt too which quite frankly proves that karma exists. We spent our last day in Pisa, which consists of a leaning tower, and not a lot else. Still, it was a really lovely holiday and I did not want to leave, especially to face the reality of a funeral :(

I ended up staying for an extra ten days in England, helping with speech writing and pretending nothing had happened. The funeral itself took place on a sunny day, which was nice in an odd way. I find funerals really weird occasions. I remember at my other grandpa’s funeral when I was about 7, at the wake, everyone was standing round chatting, and drinking, and laughing. I was outraged; did no-one else think it was disrespectful to laugh? We’d just been to a funeral, why were they smiling?! I stormed over to my mum and she tried to explain that everyone was celebrating his life, instead of mourning his death. I told her that everyone was rude, and that I’d just be sad on my own, because obviously no-one else cared about him.

But I get it now. They really are the most juxtaposing events, because you are so sad that someone you loved has gone, yet you’re really happy because you had a chance to know them. You cry, you can’t believe such a thing has happened, you wish it could be different. But you also laugh, and smile, and remember good things, things that you probably hadn’t thought about in a long time. And in general, as far as funerals go, it went well. It was a nice day, he had a great send off, a huge amount of people came which, considering he was 81 and had attended his share of funerals himself, was pretty impressive. He was a lovely man and is still sorely missed. And with a wife, 5 children, 12 grandchildren, 2 step-sons and 5 step-grandchildren left behind, his legacy lives on.

And now I’m back in Dallas, where the temperature is in the mid-20s, and people eat Krispy Kreme cheeseburgers for lunch (yes it’s exactly how it sounds, and no I’m not kidding). I’m missing home of course, but only because I know I’m not going back for a while. Plus, they sell PG Tips here so I’ll be fine :)