It just so happened that my visit to New Haven coincided with Yale parents' weekend.

There were a lot of proud couples being escorted around by a their progeny.  And they probably managed to buy out the Yale shop's parents' gear.  You know, the things emblazoned with 'Yale University Mom' or the Dad equivalent.

I spent some time today inside the Yale cathedral to learning, otherwise known as a library.  The thing that most disappointed me was the newspaper room.  To be honest it was really the only thing that disappointed me other than the tour guide ignoring the Tomb.

While the newspaper room housed papers from all around the world they managed to miss New Zealand.  And Australia, but why would you want something from there?  The closest they came was Indonesia, I believe.  I had to get my news from a British paper.

*      *      *

Nathan Hale

There is a statue in the Old Campus of this man.  Said to be the first American spy, or possibly just the first one discovered.

Upon graduating Yale in 1773 he decided that the best thing for him to do was to serve his country in the Revolutionary War.  He signed up and was sent to Manhattan on his first mission, to spy.

Within 48 hours he was feeling a little edgy and made the choice to confess his part to the man sitting next to him at the pub.  He was of the opinion that once someone knew his part, he could continue on in his duties without a worry.

Unfortunately the man sitting next to him was in the British forces.  He was promptly arrested.

At his execution he uttered the words "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country".

Skip forward to 1914 and the graduating class decide to give the university a statue of Nathan Hale.

When the CIA moved to Langley in Virginia there were apparently quite a few Yale alums working there.

CIA approached Yale asking if they would gift them this statue, they were refused.  They requested the amount at which they could purchase it and were again refused.

It is said that one night operatives scaled the walls to gain access to the courtyard where the statue stood.  They took a mould and now an indentical statue sits in front of the CIA headquaters in Virginia.

So the CIA got their statue of the first American spy.

However Hale was a man of fairly modest means.  In his time this meant he had no busts made of him, nor any photographs.  There was no image of him anywhere.

The class of 1914 were made to line up along the courtyard for the sculptor in their most handsome and patriotic pose.

The man in the sculpture outside the CIA is the most handsome man in the Yale class of 1914.

*      *      *

Tombstones

This is not going to expand upon my earlier mention of the Tomb.  That relates to Yale's very secret society and as such, that's all I know.

Rather it relates to my favourite morsel garnered during the student lead tour of Yale and has to do with the New Haven Green.  The central square of the tour that was laid aside for markets and festivals by the founding fathers.

As these founding fathers started passing on they didn't really want to abandon their green.  So they didn't - they were buried there.

The graveyard grew and the festivals became a little depressing as people tripped over the tombstones.

The town decided to move the graveyard a few blocks away.  They checked the budget and there was not quite enough to cover moving both the tombstones and the bodies.

The tombstones became the first planned graveyard in the United States and the bodies remained where they were.  Allowing future generations to dance upon them.

I've spent almost two weeks in Boston and I've yet to really mention any of the things I've seen.

*      *      *

Freedom Trail

It took me about four days to walk the entire Freedom Trail - I kept getting distracted by things on the way.  Not to mention I took an extremely long time in all the museums, reading all the notes and looking at all the displays.

There are so many things along the Trail that I really can't remember them all at the moment.

Paul Revere's house was incorrectly restored before it opened as a tourist attraction in 1908.  It was supposed to reflect how it would have been when he lived in it.  It doesn't.

I sat in the same pew as Theodore Roosevelt did when he attended a service at the Old North Church (of Paul Revere's Ride "two if by water" fame).

It took me three tries to get on USS Constitution.  Strange hours.

*      *      *

Fenway Park

So if you know anything about Boston you may have heard of this baseball team called the Red Sox.  Fenway Park is home of the Red Sox.

It was built in 1912 and there have been a few additions since then, although there are still some original seats from that time.  They built them small back then.

There used to be a small wall on one side and the owner occasionally got complaints from the neighbours regarding broken windows.  So he took a stroll one day to view these windows - what he discovered was that some fans were watching the game over the wall.  So up went the Green Monster, 11.3 metres high and somewhat of a legend now.

There were substantial additions in 1989 and as the tour guide mentioned it would be best to visit the restrooms in this area.

There's a special section behind the home plate, some sort of club.  As part of renovations they upgraded this section a little, including adding glass to protect the fans from any stray balls.  Problem was, as well as being ball-proof, it was also sound-proof.  They could see the game but that was it, they were missing out on the sound of the bat hitting the ball.

In went microphones.  A lot of them.  Now they could hear everything on the field.  Everything.  Including the extremely pleasant language being bandied about by the players.  So a four second delay was added.  Now the batter was rounded second base before they heard the crack of the ball.

The glass was removed.

*      *      *

Salem

This town gets very into Halloween.

There were some interesting exhibits and houses, I visited a few but it was getting repetitive.  I would not have been able to visit all the witch and wax museums but was a little sad to miss the pirate one.

*      *      *

Harvard

No visit to Boston is really complete until you have wandered the Harvard campus.  So I wandered.

When the fire department was planning on building a firehouse across the road from campus they decided to consult the school.  The school requested that they design it to fit in with the surronding buildings.  And they did, it cost more than three times what it should have.  A few years later the school builds the monstrosity that is the science department.  A blight on the landscape.

Harvard has been around for 370 years.  There are many stories.

There's the John Harvard statue - sometimes referred to as the statue of three lies.  The best one being that it's not actually of John Harvard.

Late one night many years ago a student was in the library using one of the reference books to finish up a report.  Closing time came and he still was not finished, after surely some internal debate he decided to take the book with him and return it early the next morning after completing his report.

Next morning he goes to return the book and the building has burnt down.  A candle was left burning after a meeting.

The president of the university is distraught - in that building was all the information they had on John Harvard, including the rare book collection he'd donated.  So this student admits to taking the rare book and returns it to the president.  He was promptly expelled for breaking the rules.

One other of John Harvard's books turned up a few years later.  Whoever that student was obviously woke up late and decide not to return the book in person.

So when it came time to create the sculpture they needed a model.  There are a few rumours floating around but no one knows for sure who the model was.

One of my favourite rumours is that the sculptor lined up the current students and picked the one he felt best represented Harvard.

The second theory I like is to do with the university administration.  Apparently all the presidents had a house named after them, such as Adams House.  In their history is a President Hoare.  They decided it wouldn't be prudent to have a house named after him.  In exchange he was able to pick the model.  Rumour has it that his grand-nephew was used.

Then there's the story to do with another man who donated rare books.  He had gone to pick up an extremely rare book in the UK and taken the safest passage back.  His mother oversaw the library in his memory.

She had a few conditions - one of them was that no brick, stone or motar be alterred.  She had seen how quickly they'd demolished the previous building on that site.

Now over the years the library grew and Harvard set their law students on the contract.

They were unable to build up but there was no mention of building down so there are five floors below the ground extending well beyond the limits of the building.  They were also able to knock out a window to construct a bridge to another building.

They make a bad joke, that what you can see of the libraray is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the collection.

Can you guess what his safe passage was?

*      *      *

Providence

I did a self guided tour of the Rhode Island State House.  But one of the most interesting things I read in my guide book before getting there.

They have a few cannons on display from varies battles.  One has the cannonball lodged in the mouth.  It had taken a hit that just reduced the circumference enough that when they tried to return fire, no luck.  About a hundred years later someone thought to ask whether the powder was still behind the ball.

So for many years the State House had a loaded cannon within its halls.

Providence is the home to Brown University, I decided to be nosy.  And somehow ended up on the prospective student information session before the tour.  Parents can be a little obsessive about getting their child into an ivy league school.

I only spent one night in Newport, which was maybe a mistake.  I didn't get to everything I would have liked.

*      *      *

Tuesday

This involved a ride on the T, transfer to Metro Rail for just over an hour to get to Providence and then another hour or so on a bus.  This put me in Newport early afternoon.

I took a stroll up to The Breakers, which is a mansion (they called it a summer cottage) that was once owned by one of the Vanderbilts.  It was an extremely lavish abode that was only used for a few weeks in the summer.

Apparently Cornelius Vanderbilt put a time limit on the construction - it was to be finished in time for his daughter's eighteenth birthday, so that they could host the party there.

As the time neared there were about two thousand workmen in tents around the estate and work was being conducted all round the clock.  But it was finished in time.

Before sunset I walked along the Cliff Walk.  This is a path that follows the coast and allows you the odd glimse of the mansions.

*      *      *

Wednesday

This morning the weather finally took a turn for the worse.  Thankfully.

It was overcast and I was so glad as I'd planned a bike ride around Ocean Drive.  A very nice road that doesn't always follow the ocean.  The leaves were starting to turn and there was the odd orange/red accent.

It was a nice route that sometimes took me past rural scenes, there was the occasional 'cottage' and the very necessary water breaking over rocks.

There were two stops on the ride.  The first was a tour round Fort Adams.

This is a fort that has a colourful background.  It took over thirty years to complete and they moved five hundred families from Ireland to obtain the craftsmen.

Its defenses were taught at military training schools prompting General Lee not to even attempt to take the fort during the Civil War.

Newport has the deepest water port in the US and this fort was designed to defend this.

After all this work they never needed to fire any of the cannons.  The threat of the fort was enough to forestall any attempts against Newport.  There were rumors that the French and British governments had somehow obtained blueprints and this deterred them.

It became a very unique army base.  It was the only one to have a social director.  This woman arranged a dance hall, movie theatre and another room with a stage for performances.  There was a permanent baseball diamond in the courtyard and a nine hole golf course outside the fort.  Also bowling alleys in the corridors where the cannons used to stand.

This became a country club that all the officers wanted entry to.  It was said that they needed to know at least four senators for this to happen.  The enlisted men lucked out.

In the fifties the army abandoned the fort and it took about ten years for the preservation society to be allowed access.  They are currently restoring it.

My second stop was another Vanderbilt mansion - this one Marble House.  Grandeur, and a lot of marble that can no longer be found.

I did not have time to visit anymore of the mansions and there were a few.  But the one I was most disappointed to miss was Beechwood (I think), it was owned by the Astor family and has a theatre troup who performs normal daily events.

And that was the end of my time in Newport.

There have been a few things in the last couple of days that have just sent shivers down my spine.  Here are three of them.

*      *      *

Niagara Falls

I did not manage to see everything at the falls but I experienced the everything I wanted to.

There was the necessary Maid of the Mist cruise that takes you right up to the falls.  They provide a plastic raincoat and take you so that you are in the midst of the spray at the bottom of the falls.  It was an interesting experience, pictures were slightly difficult due to the inevitable drops falling on expensive digital cameras.

However the most powerful experience was called Cave of the Winds.  This involved another raincoat, sandels and a plastic bag to store your shoes.  You rode an elevator down to the red boardwalks at the bottom of the falls - this can be done on either the American or Canadian side.

It was a little windy the day I did this (according to another woman visiting with her elderly mother).  Maybe this is why I enjoyed it so much?

The platforms seemed to be held up by boards wedged against rocks, it made one wonder whether the force of the falls would wipe them out.

The water surged over the first step up on some of the platforms.  This allowed you to actually stand in the falls - I took full advantage and lingered in these spots.

The spray coming off the falls made it difficult to look up and next to impossible to take any photos.  But what it did do was create rainbows.  Circular rainbows, that began and ended at the point you were standing.  Describing that sight is really beyond words.

*      *      *

Old State House

This is a building integral to America liberty and therefore shouldn't really make much of an impression on me.  But I stood inside the Representatives Hall just a few steps away from the balcony were the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time in Boston and gazed down State Street to the waterfront where an American flag was flying and got shivers.

So much happened in and around the Old State House.  One event was the Boston Massacre, although I don't think it really deserves that term.  The building was one of the spots where the first inklings of a revolution began.

*      *      *

Remember

This word is etched into the stone on the path of the Holocaust memorial.

Six towering glass structures with the ID numbers of all who died.  There were quotes on the path, in tablets and on the glass.

One such quote came from Gerda Weissman Klein, a woman who ended up marrying the U.S. Army officer who led the troops that rescued her.

Ilsa, a childhood friend of mine,

once found a raspberry in the camp

and carried it in her pocket all day

a present to me that night on a leaf.

Image a world in which

your entire possession is

one raspberry and

you give it to your friend.

Grooves

The steps to the Lincoln memorial are so worn from all the visitors that the steps dip in the middle.

The number of visitors required to make these impressions is slightly mind boggling.

The other noticable dip was at a star in the floor of the Capitol building.  Technically this star is the centre of Washington DC.

*      *      *

Ice Cream

I've not had a lot of luck in my pursuit of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

Distressingly most of the hostels do not have freezers, making buying a pint a little hard.

So far I've managed to try Phish Food and Half Baked - I will keep my eyes open for shops where I can purchase a scoop.

*      *      *

Codpieces

While visiting Niagara Falls I stayed in Buffalo NY and no codpieces were not a weird fashion item.

Buffalo received Broadway productions and while I was there I got to see Mamma Mia.  A very enjoyable show.

Now it's probably because it happened so close to the end of the show but I was left with the burning image of the three potential fathers in codpieces.

I just wonder how much debate went into the size?

*      *      *

Kindness of Strangers

The lady at the ticket counter for the theater offered to take me to the falls.

Apparently she has a daughter about my age and hoped someone would offer the same kindness to her if she was travelling alone.

I didn't take her up on the offer but the thought was appreciated.

Til next time.

I have done so much walking my feet are sore.

I've stopped by the White House and the White House Visitors Centre.  If you want to do the White House tour you need to speak to your Congressman about two months before you leave and you're also supposed to have a group of ten or more.

In our case we should contact our Embassy at least six weeks prior to your visit.  Never mind, I've seen inside before - it wasn't that fascinating.

I didn't quite finish looking through the Ford Theater before it closed for the day and I was rushed out of the International Spy Museum before I could finish reading the exhibits.  The museum closed early, it probably had something to do with the men in tuxedos at the entrance.

Today I managed to go up both the Washington Memorial and the Old Post Office Tower for views over the city.

I think I've seen enough memorials for a few days.

Yesterday I met up with Jo who is visiting relatives in the area.  She took me to a baseball game, Mets vs DC Nationals.  I'd like to point out that I was early and had to wait for her, not something that happens often to me.

While I waited I contemplated buying team merchandise but I didn't know which team I was supposed to be supporting.

Til next time.

I headed out yesterday morning, not too early of course, and realised I didn't really have a clue where I was going.

I had a general idea and a subway map that I didn't take with me.  I knew if I hit a particular avenue I was heading in the right direction to get to Central Park.  What I forgot to take into account was the fact that it would not be the first street I came across.

So when I hit York Avenue I headed in the opposite direction.  This lead me to the edge of Manhattan and a little park with dog enclosures.

It had only really taken me a block in the wrong direction so after wandering through the park I headed towards Central Park.

I was just across the road from the Central Park when a woman called out from a car asking for directions.  The funniest bit about her seeming to think I knew my way was the fact that I actually did know where she was heading.

The sun was out but the weather wasn't really hot, there was even a cool breeze.  But it was hot!  I don't think it was the humidity so much as all the people and cars in the city.

By the time I got to Central Park I was ready for a rest on a bench in the shade.

I found the aptly named Turtle Pond and Belvedere Castle then headed down towards the bottom of the Park.  Not before being asked for directions again.  And being able to give them again!

I emerged on 50-something Street, located Broadway and my next stop was Times Square.

It was pretty much as I remembered it.  Not very exciting.  There are, of course, the theatres and a few television studios nearby.

There was a visit to Bloomingdale's and a rather lengthy stop at Dylan's Candy Bar.  (I overheard more than one child declare that they wanted to live there.)

I'm in Washington DC now and I'll let you know what I'm up to in a few days.

Later.

Itinerary

So this is very basic but here's where I'm going to be.

27 September      Arrive New York

29 September      Washington DC

4 October            Niagara Falls

7 October            Boston

10 October          One night in Newport RI then back to Boston

20 October         New Haven CT

25 October        Back in New York

1 November      Flight to Tahiti - lose a day

5 November      My flight home actually leaves Tahiti on the 4th

*      *      *

So my team at work organised a picnic lunch to farewell me today.  They didn't give me any warning so when they came to collect me I told them to wait.

I figured the pub wasn't going anywhere but the programme would time out if I didn't finish typing my note before leaving.

So I kept typing while they giggled.  I knew they were waiting for me but I couldn't see what the rush was, not to mention the giggling was a little distracting.

This was going to help them deal with my work while I was gone - I just could not understand why they didn't appreciate that fact.

So I finally finish up, Catherine's fetched my jacket (I have trained you well) and we head off to the elevator.  Then my team leader steps out of an arriving lift with a pile of pizzas and I'm wondering what on earth he's doing with them.  We're going to the pub.

But no I have been deceived!  And right under my nose.  I did consider asking what the collection of money on Miriam's desk was.  Honestly, she sits right next to me.

Thanks for a memorable afternoon.