An Englishman, an Irishman, a Frenchman, a German and an Australian walk into a bar in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. No joke.
The Englishman wakes up with a hangover, despite taking on a relatively small volume of alcohol the night before, because he hasn't really drunk very much in recent times. He makes his way downstairs to the free breakfast and is confronted by live coverage of the Macy's (TM) Thanksgiving (TM) Day Parade (TM), beamed direct from 34th Street, New York City. Where the miracles happen...
From what I have gathered from witnessing it and speaking to the few locals in the hostel, Americans go ape for Thanksgiving. Many refer to it as their 'favourite' holiday. The televised parade features many many marching bands and cheerleaders and singers on floats and more thirty feet long floating balloon brand icons than I could ever have imagined in one place. And I've seen Tim Burton's Batman more than once. Each balloon is accompanied by a sales figure voiceover: here comes Sonic the Hedgehog celebrating 20 years with Sega, his 24ft long sneakers rocketing him to his next adventure!
It is all a little surreal for 9 O'clock in the morning, with the effects of the night before still proudly held in the forefront of my mind. I just hope I wasn't the only one to see Avril Lavigne riding in on a two-storey high turkey, flanked by Puritans.
The Boston hostel is perhaps the most generous I have encountered. They lay on a free Thanksgiving dinner that evening - well-received by us poor starving travellers, and a great introduction to what Thanksgiving is all about.
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Frenchman buy bargain tickets to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. No joke.
They get to see Symphony #4 by some contemporary local chap, followed by a Ravel and a Mahler in the two-hour performance. Don't you know. (The whispers around and about suggest this Boston Symphony Orchestra is world-renowned. So a ticket for $9 when some in the audience have paid $300 is not to be sniffed at.) Ravel wins for being the most enthusiastic piece of the afternoon.
Not content to merely laud it up with the upper-middle classes at the Symphony Hall, I fit in a visit to the Museum of Fine Art on the same day. 'Fine Art' is starting to expand to include contemporary works of the 20th Century, and photography and film, but the gallery is still dominated by Anglo-American and traditional European paintings of the 18th and 19th Centuries. More chance for me to see the likes of van Gogh, Manet, Renoir, a beautiful John Singer Sargent, plus a special exhibition of the nudes of Degas - an amazingly huge collection; probably the biggest single exhibit of one artists' work that I've ever encountered. Which, considering Degas is probably best-known for his portraits of performers, says a lot about his prolificacy.
The Degas works are quite stunning - updating the traditional 'life' portraits (if you couldn't paint nudes, you couldn't paint) of classical scenes from history or religion into scenes of women (and one or two men) in everyday nude poses. That's everyday as in, 'in the bath', not down Tesco's! There are a couple of pastels, in particular, that I am drawn (sorry) to.
An Englishman, an Irishman, a Frenchman and a German go out to a restaurant. No joke.
Afterwards they attempt to sample a local hostelry, but are denied entry on the grounds of not having sufficient government identification. The Englishman asks the minder whether the gray hairs in his eight-year growth beard is identification enough of the groups' legitimacy, but it seems not. On its' last night together the pan-European cliché/clique/cliqué is forced back to the hostel.
I can see the whiskers on my cheeks just by opening my eyes. Which
means it's probably about time I took a look in a mirror. Although there is something quite alluring about growing my facial hair unabated for the rest of the sabbatical. I am quite aware, however, of the likelihood this is only alluring to me. And fans of Teen Wolf.
I head south from Boston for a day, to Cape Cod and the scene of the first landing of Puritans in 1620. I'm there more for the scenery than to revel in the history of the place. The weather is unseasonably fair - supposedly it is December later this week, and yet I should probably be using sun-block. I amble through familiarly-named towns - Plymouth, Taunton, Weymouth, Pembroke, Truro, Barnstable, Braintree(!) - before bedding down for the night in Shawme-Crowell State Forest. For tomorrow is, I expect, the only time I will see four States in one day. Tomorrow, the Big Apple awaits.
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