Boston Trip – Day One: Travelling and Mark Twain

Today was probably the longest day of the trip. Getting up at three-thirty a.m. with the help of oh-so-generous, yet sleepy parents, we piled onto the large luxury bus to start our travels. Automatically, at least half the bus fell into a deep sleep, and we have tons of evidence of it.

At about eight a.m. we stopped at a rest stop McDonalds in DuBois, Pennsylvania, to grab some yummy, yet nutritiously unsound breakfast! And in what would come to be great familiarity with a routine, we all piled back onto the bus for another three or four hours of trekking across the middle of nowhere. Of course, later on, right over the New York-Pennsylvania border, we stopped for lunch at yet again…McDonalds. Of course, many students opted to go across the street for a change of pace, and get some yummy Wendy’s food instead!

By this time, we had run ourselves through two movies, and the sleeping persisted. Of course, trapped on a bus for twelve hours, what else is there to do?

Later, twelve hours exactly after we left the front steps of Normandy, we arrived in Hartford, Connecticut, and the home of legendary writer, Samuel Clemens a.k.a. Mark Twain. The Visitors’ Center was beautifully made, with beautiful colors and sayings from the writer himself etched into the stone. After a brief trip through there, we were taken into one of the loveliest homes I’ve ever had the chance to see. Every room was large and beautifully furbished, with the most amazing Victorian-era furniture and paintings on the walls. Even the walls themselves were painted! It was quite charming.

Afterwards, we took the opportunity to get a first group-photo of our zombie-like state, on the steps of the Visitors’ Center, with Twain’s house in the background. Finally, after about another hour of travelling, we reached New Haven, college-town, housing Yale University, one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States. We checked into the hotel rooms, and got comfortable for a few minutes.

Afterwards, we were given free reign to walk around in small groups, and explore the college. There were many stores to look into, but it seemed that because of the legend "All college students eat only pizza", pizzerias were in profusion. This closed out our day, as curfew to be back in the hotel was at 9pm, and now we’re all settled in. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but in the next few days, we know we’ll be exhausted.