Boston city can be regarded in two different perspectives. For Americans it's a great place filled with American history. For everyone else it's... nothing special. It's a nice place though! From were we are living, it took about one hour with bus to the city. Already from the bus, as we arrived in Boston, I noticed the buildings here are quite interesting and very different from each other. Not only do they have interesting shapes, it's a great mix of old and new building, fancy and just industry looking, and with one or two old fashioned European style here and there. Starting at the bus and train station, this is what we first encountered.
A very suspcious looking man!
Now I was told that there is a restaurant here that serves "not just Mexican food, but gooooooood Mexican food!" It's called Chipotle, and basically it's burritos served in different ways. Here is a burito bowl.
And it sure was good!! The restaurant is really popular in the States and you can find it in many cities. It's owned by Mcdonalds btw. Lol.
Is there any country more patriotic than the States?
This park is called Boston Common and is in the middle of the city.
State house with some restoration going on at the top, making it look pretty funny!
A pond
A duck not afraid of humans at all!
Swan boat meets a swan
In Boston they have something called "Freedom trail", which is a trail through the city that passes by almost everything worth visiting that is connected to the American history. You all heard about the Boston Tea Party right? Americans throwing the Brittains' tea chests into the sea which led to a war where Americans freed themselves from the Brittish ruling.
And the trail looks like this:
First stop is the Park Street Church where some guy delivered the first speech about freeing slaves. It's like any other old churches.
This building has a very fancy name: King's Chapel, and was the first unitarian church in the States.
Inside the church
And here, wow there is a list of every famous people (or anyone just making something worth mentioning) who have been sitting at any of the seats in the church! Amazing...... (not really, I didn't even recognized most of the names. They are only famous in Boston area).
Old city hall with a statue of Abraham Lincoln
Hello there!
Old state house
With a subway station underneath!!!!
We didn't walk through the whole freedom trail but we saw most of it, which made me come to the conclusion: Americans seems to take very small things or details in their history and makes it very big. For example, one of the houses we didn't go to was the house of a normal person who's big controbution to the history was simply to warn the soldiers the Brittish army is on it's way to attack. Well for sure it was a good thing, but would seeing the house he lived in be that special? Nah. And so on. Probably it's like this since the American history is actually only 200 years old so, compared to all the great things I saw in China, I didn't feel like I found many interesting things to take pictures of to show you. So, I'm going to show more food pictures instead! We ended the day in Boston by going to a all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant! (Paying one sum and eating as much as you can).
And they had so many different kinds of sushi and it was all delicous! Almost as good as in Japan! (Except for that egg thing, that was wierd....)
However their tempura was a great failure. Totally tasteless. Not at all like the ones I tried in Japan.
Udon noodles and Gyoza (fried dumplings). Also pretty good.
Nom nom
But the sushi was the best of all the dishes. When I was full, my boyfriend went ahead ordering more sushi of the kind I don't like. Like squid (the white one) and more of the egg sushi.
As the dessert, Japanese ice cream. Green tea and red beans. Yum!
That was it from Boston. I like the city! But not the most interesting place for tourists. I'm sure New York City will have a lot more to take pictures of. Just hope it won't rain while we are there....
Funny, but my first impression of America is that everything is so....American! Some American friends of mine have told me not to judge the country from Hollywood movies, and that I must go here to see what the States really is like. However, my impression was that - wow, it really is like in the movies. I guess if one has seen probably about a hundred or more American movies you are bound to see some more realistic ones too. But even the things I thought must have been an exaggeration is actually true. First of all yes, everything really is big here.
Just take a look at the road and the side walk!!
Oh yeah, I'm living in kind of countryside area near a school campus. This small city called Worcester is one hour with bus from Boston (two hours with train, why does the train take longer time? Makes no sense.) I think it's kind of like Torsby, a village in the countryside of Sweden (Värmland district), except that here everything is so much bigger. A bit too big actually, since there are hardly any people walking in the streets or who even hang out in the city area which brings me to the next topics. Americans really do drive everywhere. Even though they have such wide sidewalks, almost no one is using them. I asked around and was told that driving license takes about 1-2 weeks to get if you are over 19 years old. This is a huge difference from Sweden - where you have to practice driving for almost two years before you got a change to pass the driving test. It's no surprise then that you can drive in the State with a Swedish license but not in Sweden with only an American license.
The houses are really big too! I thought they only showed how rich people live in the movies, but seems like even middle class people have huuuge houses, at least in more countryside areas. Strangely, the windows are really small in contrast to the size of the house, which forces you to have lamps turned on even though it's in the middle of the day and the sun is shining bright. So inefficient, don't you agree? If they had bigger windows they could save more electricity.
Other than roads and houses, you got it right if you thought perhaps the food is big here too. Look at this, it's a hamburger for one person, but it it was enough for two people! (The hamburger is split in two in the picture)
The hamburger was really delicious by the way, which really makes one wonder how Mcdonald’s came to be popular around the world, it's nothing like these hamburgers! The side dish is soft pretzels. Americans loves pretzels but I don't understand why. Soft pretzels are just like ordinary hot dog bread with some salt on, and hard pretzels are like the Swedish salty sticks (salta pinnar). They have hard pretzels with bacon and cheese taste too, so I guess that's what makes it popular. Have any of you tried pretzels?
Even the potatoes are big here!!!
Alright that's it for this time, I will post some more pictures later on from my day trip in Boston. Next week I'm going to New York City woop woop!
Cheers!
My blogging came to a sudden end when I was at Dalian and I failed with my promise to keep you updated with photos and text about my adventures there. I'll blame it all on the slow internet! I sincerely tried a few times but when it takes close to an hour to just upload ONE picture..... I simply gave up. Maybe I will upload the pictures I took later on when I have nothing to do some day if anyone would still be interested in seeing them. To make a long story short though, Dalian was a really nice place. Although it wasn't that much to see there, so as for tourist people it would be very boring. It was, on the other hand, a great place to live at. Well great in Chinese standards. The air and environment was fairly clean and you didn't have to worry about smog. That doesn't mean there weren’t a lot of cars though, because there were tons of cars everywhere. And people littering all over the place, including coughing, spitting and snorting. However, the school I went to, Dongbei university of finance and economics, was a clean and it was a nice place, the campus had trees and flowers and it was mostly student moving from one class room to another, making it a very relaxing place almost shut off from the surrounding traffic and daily life.
The teachers were great and friendly, and used to handle foreign students. Few of them could speak English which gave great opportunities to challenges one's Chinese. Overall it wasn't many Europeans or Americans there at all. Other than me, there was one student from Belgium studying Chinese in the same building as me. Then there was a handful of Americans in different kinds of exchange programs whom never was afraid of trying there Chinese everywhere with everyone even though most of them where just beginners. That's one real source of inspirations for especially us Swedish people, since we tend to be very careful when speaking to strangers. Not the best strategy of learning a new language I've noticed. There was also a dozen of Germans at the school, but wthey studied other courses other than Chinese; therefore, was in another building. So, as you can see, it couldn't have been better for a student who wants to practice Chinese and not fall in to the trap of hanging out with people who could speak English. In my class the second semester, there wasn't even a single person who could speak English. If I had a question I had to use my Chinese even though it could lead to very embarrassing situations where I made no sense at all.
As most of you know, assuming the ones reading my blog would be my parents and some friends, I met this really nice guy in Dalian, whom also was an exchange student. Although he was born in Korea, he has been moving around and been living in several of different countries. At that moment he was a college student in the United States, and was in Dalian just for one semester to learn more about China and Chinese. Now, two years later, I have come to the States for the first time in my life (well I haven't lived that long yet), and I will again tell you my impressions of a large country on the other side of the planet. So from China to America, here is what I've experienced...
