Boston Day 2

amazing day in Boston today, not heaps of photos but plenty to tell. Spent the morning on my lonesome haha the boys went off to check out Harvard and MIT, I would've been keen but we have limited time here so I went the other way to check out the Berklee music college. Made my way through the Boston Commons which was just stunning at 11 in the morning today. Really sick. This is one of two things I got photos of today, so enjoy these :)

From this straight path runs for aaaaages, right through the park and beyond..

was so sick with the skyline in the background

old mate George Washington

This here is commonwealth ave, the path i pointed out before continues down here for ages, it's a really pretty walk, there's the most amazing houses either side and the trees that line it are so sick.

I walked for ages down Commonwealth Ave and eventually found my way to the Berklee campus. Man, this was sick! It's spread out like the Auckland Uni campus around a downtown area. But the whole area has obviously been really influenced by the campus. Every little snippet of conversation I heard from people walking by was either about songwriting, old rock and roll bands, guitar pedals, jazz modes etc etc. I felt very much at home. I had a little nosey round the buildings but couldn't really get too far into it without feeling super weird and out of place. It was just really inspiring even to be in the area you know. For some reason not all my photos from this area came out.. something wrong with my camera.. sucks! either way, here's the ones that did come out. This was one of the smaller buildings (impressive huh) ha

saw this humorous piece of work by the giant saxophone

This was one of my favorite parts of the day, found a killer record store between two berklee buildings, with this super rad/crazy old dude who obviously knew a thing or two about rock and roll (mainly from experience I think) .. I asked him if they had any records by the sonics, I've been trying to find sonics records but even re issues are so hard to come by, we ended up talking/he ended up telling me stories for a good hour.. he knows EVERYTHING about bands. He made a few (literally about 10) recommendations of records I'd never heard of, and that were never released in NZ, so I could get some stuff that I'd never find back home. I ended up spending 25 bucks on 3 records. They were having their first sale in 33 and 1/3 years of business, the sale was 33 and a 1/3 off everything in the store. pretty clever! So anyways I got a 72 rarities album from the who, a record by Blues Magoos, this band from the bronx who helped to kickstart psychedelic music, and then a Them record. Very cool. Oh yeah, and I found a Split Enz record haha kinda cool finding it in boston.

Made my way back to the hotel and met the guys. We chilled for a bit then went out on another mission round the city, we really just wandered about, found some good food, a cool tavern, enjoyed another round of Samuel Adams, and now just taking it easy before New York tomorrow morning. Will have to figure out my camera before then!

BOSTON!

Well! This here blog has been dormant for a long time! I have been working on a post of all the things I've been doing in Georgia, however it will have to wait because I'm off again on another big trip. I'm sitting right now in a hotel room in BOSTON! I finished my semester on Thursday afternoon, then left at 6 30 am on Saturday morning to get here.

Here's me and my room mates about to leave! Behind us is our transportation, dora the ford explorer. It get's us from A to B with a little bit of trouble. There's Philip from Denmark on the right, and Ben from Nigeria in the middle. Gustavo from Brasil is taking the photo. This was taken in Augusta, GA with Boston MA as the destination. If you drove it without stopping, it'd be a 17 hour drive, no biggie :)

 We started at 6 30, and drove with a few stops on the way until we reached Berlin Connecticut at about 11 that night. First real experience of cabin fever i reckon haha, we checked in at a cheap motel for the night, then got straight back on the road at 8 30

Over the trip we passed through 11 states (if you include DC) and finally made it to boston at about 10 30 on Sunday.

Here's me and Philip and Gustavo trying to figure out where to go first.. as you can probably tell by the photo, it's blooooody cold here! -1 or -2 i think!! wow.

We wasted no time in getting out and checking out the city, our hotel was right in downtown, so we just dropped our things and started our sight seeing. Here's me sliding down the rails outside the town hall, the building in the centre that I'm facing is Faneuil Hall, the first stop on the freedom trail.

Here's the four of us with Samuel Adams, the guy who kicked off the american revolution, and also the inspiration for the name of a tasty Boston brewed beer.

Here's me in Faneuil Hall.

Here's the stage in the hall, it's a pretty amazing building

We planned to meet up with four of the GRSP girls who were in Boston at the same time as us, so here we all are outside Massachusetts State House. This building was particularly exciting for me because it's on the Boston level of Tony Hawks underground 2, and you have to grind off the heads of the statues, it was really cool walking around Boston because i kept seeing land marks from the game. From right to left you have Ben, Me, Michaela from South Africa, Philipa from Sweden, Becky from Wales, Agnetha from Denmark, Gustavo and Philip.

Once we found the girls we all got back on the freedom trail. Boom!

Donkey riding, that's becky from wales on the right

all of us by a maaaaassive christmas tree!

made a quick stop at urban outfitters for a pair of boots, the canvas shoes just weren't cutting it in the cold! 

 Got my feet nice and toasty, then while the girls were still shopping, me and the boys found a little tavern for a liquid lunch with Samuel Adams, not a bad drop.

Then I lost the bottom of my legs but got to wear larry birds shoes

Found a rotary sign!

Got all the rotary students in for a photo with the sign!

Made friends with a statue

Found the coolest part of town!

Ran into a christmas parade, with santas, marching bands, mini fire trucks, all that good stuff.

Everyone enjoying the show..

We then hit a restaurant for coffee while the sun went down (at 4 30 in the afternoon!) then carried on the freedom trail which took us all over the city, took a self timed photo on the steps outside the bunker hill monument.

The monument, I never caught this guys name but he looks like Zoro without his mask

Wandered round some wicked cool streets

I even found the skinniest house in the world! If I ever move to boston then I'll have to live here. I'm pretty sure this house was purpose built for skinny people haha skinny hall ways and everything

We really wanted to go sing Karaoke but couldn't find any Karaoke bars so we got back to the hotel room and improvised. The rules were you couldn't pick your own song, and everybody had to sing. This is me singing ricky martin, liiiivin la vida loca yeow!

We even had the youtube karaoke videos going on.

after a bloody good day the girls went back to their hotel and we crashed.. It's now monday morning as I'm finishing up here, and the boys have all gone off to check out the harvard campus, I've decided to spend my morning checking out the Berklee music campus, see what it's got on Auckland Uni. While try and keep updating as I go, we leave for NY tomorrow! YEEEEEEOW!!

Grand Canyon!

So I've arrived in Georgia now, It's beautiful here! Really hot and muggy. Not quite as hot as phoenix which is nice but the humidity is pretty gnarly! the air is always really thick. Augusta is SUCH a beautiful town, its really green. The houses are epic too, they're all massive and super old! and all the people here talk with really southern accents. I almost feel like I'm living in a movie haha

Anyway.. The day before I flew out Cody's brother Butch and his wife Heidi, took me and they're daughter Addy up to the Grand Canyon! We left at 12, and it took us 4 hours to get there. Butch's car stereo was broken, so to keep ourselves entertained on the drive we played an alphabet game, where you start at A and have to get to Z, to progress to a new letter you have to spot a word somewhere outside the car on a road sign or another car, so you progress pretty fast until letters like Q or X or Z.. we were both stuck on Z, so basically the first one to see a Z word would win the game, butch got distracted just as we got to a 'no passing zone' and i took it out :) so stoked haha! we pretty much ate jerky and sun flower seeds and played the alphabet game til we got there.

Got to the canyon, and because we were so high up it wasn't too hot which was nice. Back in Phoenix there's never relief from the heat when you're outside, so it was so sick being outside in the sun and not dying from the heat. We basically just wandered around and had our minds blown! here's some photos we got from the day .....


This is Heidi, and Addy

 Butch and Addy

 Now you can kind of see the canyon..

 IT'S SOOOO BIG!

 Just being a tourist ha

 Me and Butch got off the track and climbed out this part that didn't have railings on it, Heidi was freeeeeaking out ha! It was mean though, I got a few snaps out there on my disposable.. I'll scan em on when I develop it.

 There were all these animals there too, I tried to get close but they kept freaking out

 Addy is the coolest baby, she's so chilled out! I've never seen her cry, she just laughs all the time. She's epic! so cute

So we drove back after about an hour and a half of checking out the canyon, got back at like 12 so I packed my things and then we went to a little party at one of Cody's friends houses where I said goodbye to all the people I'd met, then we went straight to the airport at 3 30, flew out at 5 30 from Phoenix to Charlotte in North Carolina. I basically had to walk straight from one terminal to the next and got straight on the other plane, which was this tiny little thing. No toilet, an aisle with one seat on the left and another with two seats on the right. And that flight took like half an hour. Straight up and down again. Got to Augusta at 2pm where I was met by Sonny who is the head of the rotary club who's sponsoring me, Billy who is one of my host parents, and then Rafael who is one of my other host fathers.

I stayed with Rafael, his wife Avita and they're daughter the first night. They took me to a steak house for dinner, where I got the smallest meal on the menu and still couldn't finish it haha and then to target where I got a 20 dollar cell phone. The prepaid plan I'm on gives me 1500 txts and minutes for 30 dollars! So cheap! Then went back to their place where I slept on a bed for the first time in 2 weeks :) Had the best sleep ever, which was good considering I didn't sleep at all since before we went to the grand canyon!! woke up to a coffee and toad in the hole, that avita made. So sick. Then came here to the place I'm living. It's a student village about 5 min drive from the Uni. I'm in a 4 bedroom apartment with 3 other dudes who are on the same scholarship program as me. Phillip is from denmark, he's studying computer science. Ben is from Nigeria and he's doing Medicine, and Gustavo is from Brazil, he's also doing medicine. The dudes are real sweet, me and Phillip walked to this mexican place last night and got some food, he's the man. And since then I've just been going to orientation things and getting to know the place. I'm pretty certain I'm gonna like it here :)

Will post soon with some more stories and photos from Georgia. I start Uni next monday so I'm looking forward to that. Hope your all doing well back home!