Our host took us to a cookout!

Letter 37

Barely 5 minutes after meeting our wonderful airbnb host she very kindly invited us to join her at her friend’s cookout; an offer we gratefully accepted! After a fantastic first day in Boston we thought we were the luckiest people in the world!

It took us 11 and a half hours on an overnight coach to get from Washington DC to Boston. As we stepped off the bus, tired and smelly, I still felt extremely excited to start exploring the city! I luckily did manage to sleep for most of the bus ride so I didn’t feel to tired when we finally arrived. We stored our luggage in the station and set straight off in search of breakfast, a map and our first photo opportunities. Every corner or Boston turns out to be a photo opportunity – I took 135 in the first day (7 hours of site seeing).

We headed to the harbour which did not disappoint. Views of Boston and its water stretch out for miles and here we stopped for a drink and a snack. Starbucks became my best friend this morning.

After quenching our hunger we went to grab a city map (a must have) and go exploring! We decided to head for the Boston Common – I always tend to head for green space. On the way we wound through streets where the buildings hung way over our heads and surprises greeted us around every corner. I found it thrilling.

The park itself is split into 2 parts and is divided by a road and a grand gate. We relaxed in front of the imposing State House for about an hour and soaked up our surroundings. Tomorrow we intend to get inside this building!

The second part is beautifully planned and is a very pleasant park to walk through. The paths, bushes, flowers, monuments and pond are beautiful all together.

boston

From here we walked up Commonwealth Avenue which is one of the most beautiful streets I have ever walked. The buildings immediately around it are pretty and characterful and in the distance you can see skyscrapers creeping up.

We were aiming for the Mapparium but also passed the library and some other lovely spaces which I will re-visit. The Mapparium is a really great building with an interesting tour inside for a tiny price. It is a stained glass globe which has strange sound effects and a light show. Worth a visit!

We then bought our metro 7-day pass so that we could head to our airbnb which is situated a 20 minute train ride from the centre of Boston. It’s only $21.75 which I thought was great – even though we are only here for 5 days. As we arrived at our host’s house the fun really began. She was so kind to us and showed us to our very comfortable room. Then she asked if we wanted to come with her to her friend’s cookout and of course we were ecstatic at the prospect! Her friends were absolutely lovely and so welcoming of us. We ate wonderful home cooked food and even had a sneaky serving of punch. It was a much needed change from camp food.This personal touch is something unique to airbnb and is why I would thoroughly recommend the site.