Harvard & Cars
20:00 - New York - Zihao & Michael
So, we left Boston this morning. Yesterday, we visited the second best educational establishment in the world - Harvard University. Alec, keen as ever, was up at 5:30am to run up and down the steps of the spectacular Harvard Stadium 37 times, and was able to give us a bit of a tour after we'd woken up. Of course we had to visit Harvard Business School, which was truly magnificent, and left Zihao wishing he'd worked harder for a 1st in order to apply for an MBA there. Meanwhile, Benji was sitting outside dreaming shooting something out of the sky.
Alec and Zihao also managed to wangle a run around the central University library (usually closed to the public) by claiming to be prospective students visiting from Oxford, which contained one of the original Gutenberg Bibles.
After Harvard, we were keen to lock down the quote for the cars we'd been given. As expected, this was not quite plain sailing. After an epic one-hour round of negotiation with Hertz's computer (with the help of the incredibly friendly Hertz employees), we managed to get our hands on a dubiously gold Toyota RAV4 (seemingly a popular colour here) and a silver Nissan Rogue.
After a slightly nail-biting drive back to the hostel (seriously confusing intersections and pedestrian priority), we got to stickering up our new-found toys. Difficult. Benji's expertise from his previous exploits with a Jag was what pulled us through most of this process, despite a few early hiccups. We finished the stickers after enjoying dinner at a local bar with live music, and retired to bed in anxious anticipation for today's journey.
This morning was an early start (6am) to avoid the totally crazy locals in rush-hour. However, this plan was quickly dismantled when we got separated within a mile from setting off thanks to a last minute lane dive by Michael, and ended up having to face the rush hour onslaught. But we quickly fixed this situation and before long, were skilled negotiators of the mad American highway.
After a few beautiful National Scenic Byways towards New York, we have arrived in our hostel (seemingly after driving through China!) which is incredibly conveniently located in the middle of Manhattan.
