Fall recess in Boston and Cape Cod

Last weekend was Fall recess for us here meaning that we had a 4-day weekend so we took advantage of it to travel together to Boston and to Cape Cod – a town by the coast, south to Boston.

We decided to drive to and from there as it was much less expensive than flying and also because we could divide the car rental by five. Boston is 5 hours and a half away from Geneva so on Friday evening we made a stop in Troy, NY which is halfway to Boston and also where another FLTA, Ana from Argentina, lives. She kindly hosted us for the night and we hit the road again the morning after.

After having spent 8 entire weeks in a small town without having seen any big cities, it was a huge change for us when we arrived in Boston. It's big but not enormous and it's not crowded. The atmosphere there is so nice, everyone seems happy and the streets and neighbourhoods are cute, neat and colourful. The city centre is actually rather small so we were able to visit most of it by foot. We saw Boston Common and Public Gardens, the Library, Back Bay, Beacon Hill (being my favourite area in the city) where you can find the loveliest shops and we ended up our day in the Skywalk Observatory where you get a 360° view of the city from a 50-floor skyscraper. We decided to stick around up there for a while to watch the sunset and the city when it's all dark and it was really worth it!

DOWNTOWN BOSTON

BOSTON COMMON & PUBLIC GARDENS

BOSTON LIBRARY

BACK BAY

BEACON HILL

BOSTON FROM ABOVE

On Sunday we went to MIT (Massachussetts Institute of Technology) which is one of the best universities in the world in terms of technology and engineering – I didn't even know about its existence but it was my Russian housemate's dream to see it – and after that we went to Harvard – which was one of my dreams – and in fairness I was a bit disappointed because it is so huge that we weren't even able to find the main entrance or building (if there's one...) and it was SO crowded... I don't know how students can concentrate with all these tourists taking photos around the campus... It was still great to see it and I purchased a beige sweater as a souvenir (and also to pretend I really studied there).

MIT

MIT DORMS

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

In the late afternoon after having done the Freedom Trail that connects nationally significant historic sites in the city centre, we drove down to Cape Cod. There we met up Jill, Irish FLTA living in Massachussetts in a lovely cottage that we had rented near the beach. This day and a half in Cape Cod was the most relaxing we had since we arrived in the US – all we did was eating proper food (the fish there really was excellent), visiting beaches and we were even able to lay in on Monday morning (which NEVER happens in Geneva, even at the weekend).

CAPE COD

As much as I love Geneva and my routine there, it was so nice to travel and see new places because after all it's also (or especially) what this year is all about!