Why Boston? It's a bit embarrassing, really

So the theme of these three weeks has been to see all things Space – which begs the question: Why are we in Boston? The answer has nothing to do with Space, or even American history: It’s all about a computer game.

Cal and I have both played a computer game called Fallout 4 which is set in a post apocalyptic Boston and features real places. So we are here to tour the major sites of Boston, through the lens of Fallout 4.

State House in Fallout 4.
Cal on the State House steps.

Leaving New York this morning we had one last view of the Empire State Building before descending into Penn Station and another bit of badly organised American queuing. The train ride to Boston was pleasant, passing through lots of cute Massachusetts towns, past frozen lakes, and through winter forests.

Our hotel is just round the corner from Boston Common, so after checking in we went exploring. Our aim is to walk the Boston Freedom Trail tomorrow and we didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves today, so we only walked through Boston Common to the Massachusetts State House with its distinctive golden dome.

We did a tour inside the House, not expecting much – but it turned out to be very interesting and we learnt quite a bit. For example the first red and white striped flag came about when the revolutionaries captured a red ensign from the British, unstitched the English cross of St George in the corner and re-stitched the white bars that were its component parts onto the red background. While not the same as the current US flag, you can clearly see the heritage there.

Lest you think we completely lost the Space plot, after some time warming up back at the hotel and a visit to the gym, we headed back out into the, now, sub-zero cold to see if we could see some stars. Boston Common at night is very pretty, especially with the Christmas lights. We did see some stars, although not many. More importantly the cold set us up nicely for a dinner of Boston chowder.