Day 29 - Monday 11 June 2012

BOSTON, USA - Day 1
Weather: Hot.
　
Today was mainly spent travelling to Boston. We left at 7:30am and, with our "comfort stops" along the way and a lunch stop, we arrived in Boston at around 4:30pm - a very long day of sitting on the bus.
　
When we arrived in Boston, we went straight to our hotel to rest until our 5:30pm meeting for dinner - for those, like me, who chose the optional Botson dinner.

We all met at the lobby at 5:30pm and Linda, our tour director, took uas for a short walking tour towards the restaurant.

We are staying at the famous Parker House hotel in the middle of Boston. It's where some of the rich and famous stay. Also, where Malcolm X worked as a bell boy. The hotel is even a building of interest on Boston's Freedom Trail.

During our walking tour, we discovered that our hotel was acros the road from the Granary Burial grounds where Benjamin Franklin's parents are buried, also where John Hancock and the victims of the Boston massacre are buried.

Part of the Robert Shaw memorial

We walked on past the Park Street church, to the Boston Common and up to the Massachusetts State House. Across the road from the State House, there is a memorial to Robert Shaw and the African American soldiers of the fifty-fourth regiment who fought in the Civil War. We were lucky as there was a re-enactment actor there who gave us a short talk about the memorial and what it signifies.
　
Then, it was off on our walk again, down a street that runs behind the State House and where the locals live. What beautiful buildings! Some of these buildings were once houses and are now apartments. There were at least three houses who are still kept as mansions.

Massachusetts State House

We then crossed to the Boston Public Gardens to the 9/11 memorial which
 We ended up having dinner at Legal Sea Foods - a nearly century old institution that has been recognised by many publications as tried and true for seafood. I had the grilled chicken.
　
Then it was time for another walk back to the hotel where we saw a soft ball game in progress on the Boston Common.
　
It was then bedtime. Tomorrow, as I have the afternoon off, I plan to follow the Freedom Trail around Boston. Can't get lost doing that!memorialises the victims of 9/11 from Massachusetts and New England.