The bus arrived to Hancock, PA. We stepped in with mixed feelings. On one hand we were really curious about Boston, which was out next destination, however we were also sorry to leave the place where we spent those amazing (almost) 3 months.
Adam, Eva and I slowly left Hancock and were heading first to New York. During the time in bus I was looking at my pictures from the camp. Was thinking about the great days and about the stories, which I will tell when I arrive at home. After 4 hours of traveling we arrived back to New York to the Port Authority Bus station. Took our belongings and quickly found our connection to Boston. We were traveling by bus. The ride took 4 and 1/2 hour. We crossed Providence and I was just thinking about that tv show from the end of 90’s. I watched all 5 seasons and during those I was heavily thinking about to become a Doctor. Later this changed and I went to study Economy and Corporate Management. Who knows if I would have ever go to a camp if I would have studied on a medical school.
Anyway, we crossed Providence and arrived to Boston at 6:30pm to the South Station.
We had the accommodation really close. In 2009 we did not have smart phone with navigation, therefore I printed the map to the hostel. If I remember well, we stayed close to the Revolution Hotel. I don’t remember anymore the name of the hostel, however I had a feeling it’s more a hotel than a hostel. The building was amazing, the room big, enough space for all of us. As we became Friends during the camp and wanted to save money, we booked only one room with 3 beds. The room was big enough and very well furnished.
When you plan to discover a city what do you do first? Generally you look for a things which are worth to visit. Well, in my case it was a bit different. Since I got my acceptance letter from Matt, I knew I want to go to New York and Boston. You might ask why Boston. There are maybe more interesting cities in US like Washington, LA or San Francisco. However none of them feels like Europe with the best universities in the World. Boston is not only a city in the states, BUT (with a BIG B) it has the 2 best universities (we can argue about it and for sure compare to Yale, Princeton, Caltech and Stanford, which are also amazing) in the World: Harvard and MIT. That was the reason I wanted to go there.
Anyway, we arrived to the hostel, left our things there and went out. If you are in a such amazing city as Boston, you can’t just sit in your room. You have to go out and discover the city. As mentioned before, I printed several pages of maps with all possible details and marked the way to the places, I wanted to visit. It was good as we did not get lost. However during the first night we just looked around the neighborhood and made few pictures.
On the second day, 1st of September 2009 we woke up really early. Went down and had an amazing breakfast. This was the first time I’ve eaten waffles with Hersey chocolate syrup. It was amazing. We got a coffee and went to the bus first. We walked to the Tremont street, took the bus no. 43 Direction: Park St. & Tremont St. via Tremont St. There we changed to the metro and arrived to the first destination of my dreams: Harvard ❤️
Of course the first thing was to make a picture already in the metro station. We left the station and were heading to the main building.
I’m not sure if you have ever been in Boston and visited the Harvard University. In case you did not, than you should probably know that it has a huge campus. The university is organized into eleven principal academic units—ten faculties and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—with campuses throughout Greater Boston: its 209-acre (85 ha) original undergraduate campus is centered on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, approximately 3 miles (5 km) northwest of Boston; the business school and many athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are across the Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical, dental, and public health schools are in the Longwood Medical Area (Source: Wikipedia). If you can’t imagine how big it is, look at the maps below:
Source: Harvard Law School
The faculty of Law from the Harvard University published this great map on the right with all buildings. It has so many building even on the other side of the Charles River, which are worth to see.
Where was I? Yes, we left me metro station and arrived to Harvard square.
Watching those buildings, I understood why people used to say that Boston is the most European from all American cities. The buildings were really similar to those, which were build in England during the Victorian era. Also the place, where Harvard is located is called Cambridge, which in Europe, in England is the name of, one of the oldest and best universities on the World. It was simply beautiful, however we did not want to stay on this place, therefore we were heading to the main building to see even more amazing places. The first thing we discovered was the status of John Havard.
Soon we reached the main building. It was the 2nd of September, the school started, therefore the official opening took place. I was glad we came on this day as the buildings were open and we could get an insight in the life of an Harvard Student. More to come in the next chapter. 🙂
Treska - Travel Smart with Koloman 