Live Free Or Die

Shouting: Jaaaaaaaan!

The Big Noodle, Boston MA

So, there's some more animals to add to the list of wildlife encountered on my travels: bedbugs, a rat and a cockroach - gotta love hostels. Although, to be fair to the hostel the rat was seen in the pub down the road rather than the hostel. The cockroach though, my god! It was about half the size of my foot. I thought that the apocalypse had come and I'd managed to sleep through 50 years of nuclear winter allowing the cockroaches to mutate and grow freakishly large as they feasted on the abundant and glow-in-the-dark human flesh. But no, it was just a youth hostel.

Another benefit of cheap hostel accommodation is the people you share a room with, and what a pleasure it was to be sharing with Sleeping Beauty. He slept a lot anyway, but he was no beauty. His snoring was something to behold. To be able to snore with no rhythm, with varying pitch, varying volume, going from wheezes to full-on room shaking snorts and consistently breathing in far more than breathing out should be considered an art in its own right. An art, but at 3 in the morning, a right pain in the arse.

Boston from top of Bunker Hill Monument, Boston MA

Apart from the infestations, I had a good time at the hostel in Boston. Met a load of really nice people, including Ricardo and Lucy who've been stalking me since Philly. Had a few decent beers; plenty of Harpoon IPA but I think the Goose Island Honkers is better. Last night we went bowling and I managed a not too disrespectful 103 and 113.

Today, it's pissing it down, and I'm sat at a bench underneath some wooden cover at the back of an ice-cream parlor on the outskirts of Derry NH with a clammy arse stealing WiFi from the Dunkin' Donuts across the road waiting for either the bar to open or someone to get back to the motel to let me have a room. Step up from Sleeping Beauty and cockroaches that could swallow a cat though.

Got to love a bit of patriotism. And chocolate.