So finally came the day to get to know Boston a little better. Since my first day I’d spent limited time in Boston itself. Now came the opportunity to experience it better …. by foot. My legs will be sore for a while.

The T: Øystein woke up around 5 o’clock this morning but decided to wait for me to get on my feet around 9:30. Nice of him, because I’m starting to get into my state from back home: going late to bed and sleeping in. We left the house pretty quickly and headed up to Harvard Square to catch breakfast. Didn’t find much useful there so we jumped on the T down towards downtown. As we passed Longfellow bridge I threw a glance at the Prudential Tower and it hit me: what better way to start the Boston Tour than by eating breakfast at the 52nd floor on the top of the city? Of course, the place is fairly expensive but .. you know… the dollar ;) We got there pretty easily by connecting from the red line to the green line. Wow, Boston subway is amazingly easy, fast and reliable.

The Tour: Without going too much in detail we did our footrace in the following orderr:

  1. Back bay through Boylston and Newberry street to Boston Common. Fancy and expensive stores right next to the many hotels. Boston Common is a park that connects all parts of Boston together.
  2. Columbus avenue to South End. Cousy (and hip according to Lonely Planet) with several small shops and many cafes and restaurants. Of course we ended up at a Starbucks for the second coffee of the day.
  3. Tremont [treh-mont] street up through Chinatown reaching Boston Common again. Guess what, we found another Starbucks.
  4. Moving through downtown with all its stores. Definitely going to check it out better at some later time.
  5. Up Beacon street past the old State House. An old, old house settled between the sky scrapers. Pretty cool.
  6. We completely lost ourself trying to find North End but ended up at Beacon hill and later to the T stop at Charles/MGM. Connected the redline with the green line to finally end up in North End
  7. Went into little Italy to catch a bite to eat. Found a nice little restaurant with of an ok standard. But we would expect better.
  8. Took the T the same way back to Central Square in Cambridge and… surprise, surprise … found a Starbucks.

The weather’s been really nice throughout the day but it’s been literally freezing. Chilly wind with far below freezing temperatures.

The Restaurant Review from our tour:

  1. The local Tavern in Cambridge: excellent salad and Chicken fillet with mashed potatoes and mushrooms. Extremely tasty with good beer.
  2. Lunch at the Prudential Tower (Top of the Hub): We both had a Mediterranean salad, which was ok. But eating at the 52nd floor at a beautiful day with a view over all of Boston is amazing.
  3. Italiano Ristorante: Just an OK risotto. Not much of a service. Good choice of wine though.

Most Valuable Establishment (MVE): Starbucks.
Tomorrow is the big utility day: get broadband internet access, buy some electronics stuff and maybe do some shopping and working out. We’re locating more and more Norwegians and we might try to gather a few for social activities.