Boston

Surprisingly, we made it all the way from our Niagara Falls hotel to our Boston hotel without any major difficulties. Our wake up call never came, but luckily Nick woke up on his own(at 5:15 am)! The only other problem was that the people in front of us were taking forever to by their bus tickets, so in the time we were waiting, our bus came and left without us, causing us to have to wait for the next bus which came 20 mins later.

Today we walked through Boston Commons, a park near our hotel where there was a hempfest going on. This means that there were thousands of college kids, and older hippies, all gathering around wearing clothes that had pot leaves on them and trying to get marijuana legalized.

We also walked the entire Freedom Trail, a two and a half mile (approx) historic walk through downtown. We saw several burial grounds where famous people were buried, old churches, the first public school built in the US, and much more. It was fascinating to see the places that our leaders met to discuss the American Revolution. We also went by Paul Reveres house, the guy who hung the lanterns on the church to warn people that the British were coming.

The trail ended at the Boston Harbor, where we saw the USS Constitution (one of the first navy ships) and USS Cassin Young (a destroyer ship used during WWII). The trail was easy to follow, as there are certain red bricks that made a line through the sidewalk. It's similar to the yellow brick road, just red! This doesn't mean however that we didn't occasionally loose the path and have to back track.

We also walked through Beacon Hill, which is a really old neighborhood with cobble stone roads. It was really pretty and it's fascinating to see where so much of our country's history took place.

I was very happy today, because I met up with a person who is going to Kenya with IVHQ who agreed to take part of the books I have with her when she goes! She took 35 chapter books, 100 pens, and 10 rulers. These books will go into the schools library where I taught. I have also emailed my host father and asked him to give the rulers and a few pens to some of the most needy children at school! I still have about 70 more chapter books that I want to send to the school, but am trying to find the cheapest way to do this as it's quite expensive. I posted a blog on IVHQ's website asking future volunteers if they would be interested in taking them for me. This is how I connected with Julia, the girl I met today. It worked out great because I originally planned on mailing them to her, but once I found out she lived in Boston, I decided to bring them with me and meet up with her! I am determined that some how or another I will get all of the rest of the books to Emmanuel Lights Academy because I know how much those children love to read!