A Long message and Halloween

The reason that I haven't written is because we have no Internet here in Boston. I didn't realise how difficult it was not having Internet a couple days and not being able to get into touch with people. I love writing about my day and working through it. I especially like hearing what all of you think, so it works out both ways I suppose.

Let's start with Thursday. Nothing really happened that day, considering that we were in a train for about 10 hours. It's actually really exhausting travelling by train. I ran through my battery on my PSP and then had nothing left to do but finish reading my book and start another. For all you Lyndsay Sands fans... The newest book is great. Funny and simple, if not a little odd, it wasn't at all what i thought it would be. Enjoy it, because there isn't another one coming in the series for a while as I understand it.

We got to our hostel, which really isn't that bad. It's a straight metro line into town which takes about 20 minutes, because they travel so slow. The metro also looks more like a tram, but that they travel underground as well. They're really nice though. People here are really different to those in DC and Philly. If Philly is Amsterdam, and DC is Rotterdam, then Boston has to be Den Haag. The people have the same stuck-up/superior way of walking and talking. I'd definitely never live here... I think I'd go nuts between them.

We're staying in the college area. This place is crawling with students. Not only are we near Boston University, but we're also close to Boston College. If you think that Groningen or Utrecht have a lot of students, you've obviously never been to Boston. Boston has more educational institutions than anywhere else in the united states. Among the 47 Universities and colleges you've got BU, B college, Harvard, MIT, Berkley, Bunker Hill Community College, Northeastern University, and Suffolk University. It's pretty ridiculous. So you can kind of imagine what it's like here. Our Hostel is only about 3 stops from BU and another 10 to BC, so we're pretty much in the heart of one of the student areas.

The room itself is quite nice. Nothing a good cleaning couldn't fix in any case, but we've got our own kitchen and we share the bathroom with about 4 other people, so it's relatively clean. That being the case, the first thing we did was go out for groceries and soap so that we could do some laundry. I'm surprised my nails are still where they are considering all the hand washing I've done in the last two days, but all my cloths are clean again. That night we decided to stay in, which I'm glad about. I got to watch Supernatural (The Halloween episode) and The Eleventh Hour, which were two of the programs I had hoped to catch. The constant commercials drive me crazy though!

Yesterday turned out to be a fun relaxed day. We walked the freedom trail, had a tour through the state house and met up with a friend for dinner. The freedom trail is a path that goes past all the important historical sights of Boston. It's literally a trail, they've put a bricked line into the ground for you to follow, with occasional painted areas, which are a little less clear, so every now and then you really have to look for the continuation of the line. There are a couple really famous places on the trip, I'll spare you the history of them all, but there are a couple that might interest some people, so I'll tell you a little about those. The fist is a place that was owned by Ebeneezer Revere. He was the brother of Paul Revere, who I'll get to in a moment. Other than the fact that he was Paul's brother he's not all that interesting. The interesting thing was that his house has been used for about 4 different versions of The Christmas Carol. Whether that was because of his name or because his house just fits with it I don't know, but as a great lover of the dickens books and movies I can tell you that it's really quite a sight to see in real life.

The next place is the Old Book Store. When I saw this on the map you can imagine what I thought.... OOOOO BBBOOOKKKKSSSS!!! Stephan looked a little scared, especially considering that he's carrying my luggage when we travel and I'm carrying his. ;p. But luckily for him, and I suppose my bookroom, it's no longer a book store but a jewelery store. What is interesting about the building though, was that it was the first literary building in the Untied States. Not only was it the first publisher, but it was the publisher for Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Longfellow. It was also the local hang out for authors such as Melville. I can just picture all of these people sitting around a table at various periods of history and discussing literary ideas and opinions. Dickens also stopped here on his tour of the United States to spend some time with the local writing talent and considered the place to be "A delight, where the level of discussion surpasses daily existence and focuses on the novelty of the universe."

Now we come to Paul Revere. I don't know if you know about him, but Paul Revere was made famous by the poem of Longfellow. When the colonies were breaking away from the British, he was a spy for the colonists who supported the separation. They were worried that Hancock and Lee would be executed and was supposed to warn people that the British were on their way so that they could hide. History textbooks quote him when he said: "The British are coming, the British are coming." This is taught in all 8th grade history classes and is probably one of the most famous stories of the Revolution. It's what started the revolution, the Boston tea party, and the Boston Massacre. So then my question becomes: How come the history books got it so wrong. Apparently most kids here in the US are learning the story completely wrong. Revere never yelled that the British were coming and he did manage to complete his mission. Anything else is poetic licence by Longfellow. You can imagine how brainwashed I felt when I had a 8 year old lean over and tell me that I had the story wrong when I while I was in the midst of explaining the events to Stephan! Apparently they've only starting correcting history books about 5 years ago. So anyone who was in 8th grade before then has this glorious piece of fiction in their head.

So, hereby, let me set the record straight: Paul Revere was a goldsmith/silversmith (Apparently they use those things interchangeably here... I'm not sure my great grandfather would have agreed with that) who by the age of 19 was as rich as Croesus. His company was doing so well that he decided he needed a little more excitement in his life. What did he do? He married. But boredom set in and as a result when the colonies decided to break away with mother England, he decided to join the effort by running secret messages to Lexington and coder (where the munitions were kept) stating what the movement of the British troops were that were stationed in Boston Harbour. So between his Goldsmith-ing, fathering children, and his courier job, he was kept quite busy.

Now, there were plans put into place for when the Loyalists would start moving, and to warn everyone there was a plan to hang lanterns from above the New Church. One for if they were coming by land and two if they were coming from see. His best friend would hang them while Revere would try to slip past the British to warn Hancock and Lee. When movement started one night, the plan was set in motion. His best friend hung the lantern and Revere went to warn everyone in Lexington. He was rowed across the water by some friends, but they didn't have cloth to keep the oars from making noise, so one of the men ran to his sweetheart's house to get some cloth and they made it safely. Revere then took a horse from someone he knew and set of the Lexington. By the time he got there another runner who had gone by land had already made it there to warn Hancock and the General. It wasn't until he was told to go and warn the minutemen in Codor that he happened upon a British Patrol that he was caught. On their way back to Boston they were caught unaware by a firefight and Revere escaped.

That's it. That's all that happened that night. Further Revere managed to live to an age of about 80. He had 15 children by 2 wives (the second he married 6 months after the death of the first) and he wasn't famous until Longfellow made a hero out of him about 5 years after his death. This account though comes form the diary of Revere. How true that is I don't know. Any Literature student can attest to the fact that anytime you put something to paper things get changed because of audience and such. So as to accurate, who knows. But this is what schools are teaching children now.

His house was really interesting, the building is very well preserved, even though the furniture wasn't original. Also he lived next to the Mariner's house. It's a hotel for sailors. Where they could rest, eat and be entertained while on shore. Fun fact: It's still a Mariners house. The only people that can lodge there are sailors. For free.

We then went to boarders so that I could buy a book to read. Having finished all the others, and then we met up with Sidharth. Sidharth and I met in Toronto the year I lived there. He was Sasha's classmate, but I didn't really get to know him until after I left. He and Sasha both went to University in/near Philly so kept in touch and are really close. We had a good time. The three of us first went to dinner at a fantastic Italian restaurant and then decided to go on a pub crawl. I slept really well last night.

Today we've dubbed as 'REST DAY'. Which is exactly what we are doing. Besides being woken up at 10.30 by my parents we've taken it really easy and are now at an Internet cafe checking mail and getting to send my email. No sightseeing today, we're going to go shopping and then we're meeting up with another friend from Toronto: Cristina. Her father was the Portuguese Consul General's daughter at the time and we had 13th grade Bio together. She, the South African Consul general's daughter and I became really good friends towards the end of my stay in Toronto and even better after I left. Facebook really is the greatest creation since email.
So, that's all pretty much except to tell you about last night. As most of you, if not all of you know, last night was Halloween. So we got to see kids trick or treating, as well as college kids in the craziest costumes. I saw 2 Palins and 1 McCain. 6 Bananas, and more miniskirts than I can think of. Stephan and Sidharth were having the time of their lives. We even saw a jack-o-lantern carved into Obama. But the greatest part of Halloween, hands down, are the kids. They were SOOO cute! Bar, you would have loved them! Imagine little bumble bees, small princesses, spidermen, and much more, running around with their parents and knocking on doors. I swear, when I have kids I'm so bringing them here (the US, not Boston) to experience this. Every kid should experience this at least one time in their lives. Even though the Halloween party I have every year is a lot of fun, nothing can replace the real thing as a kid.

So I'll leave you with the image of bumble bees and supermen, and I'm going to go have lunch. Have a great day and Happy belated Halloween!