Those funny accents

Boston's another pretty town.

Boston, too, is a very nice town. The States could really grow on me. I'd love to do a road trip here, either coast to coast or north-south, it's all good. Jo and Julian put us up in Harvard Square for a few nights (thanks again guys!). Poor Jo was in frantic study mode as we turned up several days before her final exams. Our bad, but they both still took the time to be great hosts! We poked around Harvard and MIT which were both great to see. This will sound parochial, but Harvard is somewhat like Sydney uni (writ large), with an excess of sandstone, history and general gravitas, while MIT is like UNSW (also writ large), much much newer, somewhat more shabby concrete than sandstone, a slightly nerdy air, and a desperate effort to convince people that it's more than just a science and engineering meccha. (It's not, but with a record like MIT has, it doesn't need to be.) Among other things, the MIT student association boasts the largest library of science-fiction literature in the world, which yours truly managed to visit and be duly impressed by :).

We caught up with Yan, which was fun (Bec where were you!) and, for a change of pace, hired a car and drove out on Cape Cod to visit Fiona, in residence in an artists' colony in Provincetown (I love saying that). The Cape is meant to be the incarnation of every American's dreamy childhood summers, filled with long hot days and ice-creams by the beach. Of course, we visisted on the one day of freakishly thick fog when you can't see more than a metre and all the wooden architecture looked spooky rather than quaint. Still, was nice to catch up with Fiona and she says hi to all the gang.

Boston skyline, on not such a nice day.

Harvard by night.

Ice cream in a converted bank vault! Now that's kinda fun.

This was the end of our brief sojourn in the States, and, bracing ourselves for another bout of culture shock, we headed back to Boston airport for a flight to Chile and 3 months in South America. Before we left though, one final cute moment of Americana - check out what passes for a waiting lounge in genteel New England!

Waiting, old-school.