Wednesday 10th

Wednesday we were to leave the Gerbers but we didn't want to get to New York too early because Melissa was working until 10pm anyway. We left the Gerbers around 11am and drove to Boston, where we were going to meet a friend of mine who I had not seen in about 6 years, Samantha.

Sam was at school with me in years 8 - 10 and we were super good friends. She is a diplomat kid so they moved every 3 years and she went to Thailand. I always missed her super lots at school and still miss her sometimes. Anyhow we were to meet her at her work at the Rowland Institute at Harvard, which is basically a science lab where Harvard university pays students to research. Sam was not a student at Harvard but somehow got a job doing neuroscience there. She took us up to see the lab. I was immediately weirded out because she was always very into animal rights etc and I never pictured her cutting up brains.

We went for lunch at The Cheesecake Factory which obviously specializes in cheesecake but is also a restaurant that sells one billion dishes. I had chicken and mashed potato stuff, jammie had a tuna thing, and Charles had a burger. It was huge! Super large! My thing turned out to be the biggest and I ate nearly all of it! Then we shared a bit of cheesecake. Mistake! We were full all day!

So it turns out that Jammie does not kill the animals she works with. She was horrified at the notion! She works with rats and does use electrodes to measure brain activity but afterwards the rats go back in with the others and are normal. They do not get disposed of and only have tiny holes in their head that didn't hurt. I was really relieved. She said that she refuses to kill them unless they are old and sick, and they are treated as well as any house pet. Interesting! It was great to catch up with her because she is just as wonderful a person as I remember.

After our lunch we said goodbye to Jammie and went to a mall. We were super full - unpleasantly full. We went to a Best Buy and Charles bought some gear for his iPhone. That was all we bought there apart from a coffee.

Then we drove down to Newbury Street, which we visited with Erin and liked a lot. It is the cool place to be in Boston! The best shop was Betsey Johnson, Wichita is a designer who make pretty frilly dresses. We also visited Urban Outfitters which has an interesting style and also sells nicknacks.

Unfortunately we overstayed our parking - by like a minute - and received a parking fine of a whopping $25. I thought it was a bit mean to book us so soon after the expiry. We were cheesed off so left the city. It was about 5:30 and peak hour but we got onto the highway immediately and were fine. The drive was long and lame and we went through another storm! Poor Charles was headachy but we managed. Stopped for a late dinner at a mcdonalds at Southbury, which is some non town. As we got closer to New York City, the roads got smaller and the traffic got more unpleasant and busy and insane. I was navigating and Charles was amazing.

We finally arrived in Brooklyn and found a car park. Gosh we were tired! Melissa found us and we went pretty well directly to bed!

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