Boston, Massachusetts

My trip to Boston was a wonderful chance to catch up with Dave, Mum and Mike; we certainly made the most of seeing each other again and I'm not sure that Boston's service industry, or it's Guinness suppliers, will ever be quite the same again.

I am beginning to lose the enjoyable novelty of flying in aeroplanes so my 11pm five-hour stint from Honolulu to Phoenix Arizona was relatively boring. Arriving late into Phoenix and missing my connection was also quite boring, although I did get to meet a guy from Aotearoa New Zealand who accosted me on the moving walkway for wearing an All Blacks shirt. Thanks to John Andersen for giving me a passport to Kiwidom, and sorry Mum I do feel like I've let the side down a bit.

Anyway, after finally arriving in Boston I was confronted by a cold empty arrival gate and no family. It was really cold. Dave and co did finally arrive after some minutes and I got to hug Mum again which is pretty amazing after more than six months. We all agreed that going for a beer and something to eat was a good idea and so Dave took us on an epic journey across Boston using all but one of the various forms of public transport, and so we arrived at an Irish Bar (where else?) for Guinness and catch-up chat. It was really cold in Boston, but have I said that already?

While Dave worked hard in the new Frank Gehry building at MIT, we enjoyed the sights of Boston. Being here improved my understanding of America a great deal. Seeing the buildings built by the Puritan settlers, reading about Bunker Hill and about George Washington, and hearing people on the subway and in Harvard Yard talking about baseball and politics. It's great to be in America proper, not the weird melting pot of Hawai'i, which is, significantly, as far from Boston as you can get within the United States.

Dave and I did get to spend some quality time, taking a duck tour of the city (in a bizarre World War 2 amphibious truck driven by a woman dressed as a footballer), playing football and looking quite good compared to those we played, and enjoying a drink at his local "The Thirsty Scholar". Dave's new life in Boston is pretty similar to his old one ini Oxford it seems, his habait of frozen chilli and spag bol (now in industrial quantities, his freezer looks like Dr Frankenstein's vault), cycling to the lab and back, pub quizzes and weekly soccer. I guess that all these world-class scientific institutes are pretty much the same.

Mum and Mike are well, indulging in that other great American pass-time, shopping. "How many new pairs of shoes does one man need?", we ask ourselves. Then decide that at these prices, the sky's the limit. We visited Filene's basement, an institution in Boston, and yours truly came out with a fine new Calvin Klein winter coat. Thanks Mum, you rock. Only Dave managed to get burnt by the consumerist bonfire, buying an ill-advised pair of shiny red and silver sneakers, that frankly none of his protestations can justify. Again however, you can't argue with the price tag (unless you work for an NGO trying to regulate sweat shops in Asia that is).

It was very sad to leave and come back to Hawai'i but I was freezing cold, and missing Ellen an awful lot, so after my trip to Washington and back I was all prepared to get on a plane. The last few days were fun in Boston and we ate incredibly well, including a trip to a burger bar where I had an incredible Arnold Schwarzenegger burger that was truly mountainous. Thanks go to Dave for putting me up and putting up with me, and to Mum and Mike for footing the bill, majorly, and for their continued commitment to eradicating Guinness, wherever it is, and at whatever price.