Boston has been one of my favourite cities so far on our journey. It is also one of the few cities where we put the effort into exploring it. Having all our possessions strapped to the back of the bike requires that the bikes be in view at all times if not securely parked somewhere, so parking and walking around a city isn’t really on option. We needed a base camp and tried to find a campground in the Boston area but after half a day on the internet we found there is no such thing. Campgrounds ranged from 25 to 50 miles outside Boston with ridiculous rates from $26 to $42 a night. We settled at 30 miles away for $30 a night which is over half of our daily budget but I was determined to explore Boston.

We picked out a great spot in the back woods of Cape Ann Campground and felt it was a safe and comfortable spot to leave our gear. Originally we had planned to ride one bike empty into the city but after talking to the owners of the campground we had another option. There is a passenger train only 5 minutes away from the campground and would apparently equal the cost of parking in downtown Boston. It turned out after paying for parking at the train station we were out an extra $5 but we did enjoy our train experience. All the trains in the greater Boston area converge on North Station and it being such a big station we figured it would have lockers available for rent that we could store our helmets in.  This was not the case and after a little bit of a goose chase in the area we managed to find a place that would hold our helmets… for $20. No way we were paying that…  So for the first 2 hours of our time in Boston I was a big grumpy baby lugging my helmet around. I eventually got over it knowing that my $20 could be spent on something amazing like a tank of gas in the Andes Mountains or a cold beer in the Sahara.

Boston is a great city for people on a tight budget like Erin and I because there is so much to see for free. Many cities have “things to do” but from a travellers point of view that means “things to spend money on”, so we often look for “things to see”. Boston offers The Freedom Trail, well marked with bricks or red paint, that leads you around the historic downtown showcasing the history of the American Revolution. The first stop for us was the USS Constitution, the oldest floating commissioned naval vessel  which was originally launched in 1797. The ship is stored in a naval yard and after passing through security we were treated to a free guided tour. I enjoyed the whole experience, even with my helmet, and would recommend it to anyone looking for free things to see.

As we continued on the trail it led us down beautiful old cobble stone streets surrounded by ancient building and monuments of distinguished revolutionary figures. Although the city is one of the oldest in the United States, I started to notice the overwhelming amount of youth in its current culture. Young business men fresh out of collage walked the street in abundance, along with students and artists from every ethnic background. It was a cultural mosaic thriving on a very active and modern lifestyle. Bicycle lanes and recycling programs were apparent throughout the city and people seemed to enjoy their green lifestyle as the streets were packed with people walking, running and cycling. I don’t consider myself to be a city person but I could picture myself living in Boston even if only for a short time. Although it had its hustle and bustle it seemed to have a very relaxed feel and I look forward to one day experiencing it again.

Erin and I are now enjoying our first Couch Surfing experience in Middle Haddam, Connecticut. Our hosts Richard and Linda were very quick to respond to our very short notice Couch Surfing request and kindly opened their home to us. For those of you who don’t know what Couch Surfing is, take a moment and look it up, it’s a fantastic community of people. Not only is it a free place to stay but you get to meet great people and get true local insight to the area you are traveling through. I’ve enjoyed the relaxing few days we have spent here and find joy in such simple things like taking their dog for a walk around the neighbourhood. Come tomorrow we will trade these simple pleasures for the city of all cities… New York City!

I have received the following question:

“Please, I hope nobody takes offense to this. I’m not trying to start any arguments but I have to ask, “How many mouths could have been fed with the monies being used for this crusade?” When talking about raising awareness, I don’t believe there are too many people around that don’t know about world hunger.”

Thanks for tuning in and subscribing to the blog. This question is valid and no offense taken. My response is an open letter to you and those with the same curious mind.

I used to make fun of an organization called “Bladder Control Awareness Group” and I used to say well, if you have a bladder control problem, I’m sure you’re aware of it! It was funny then, but I really didn’t know squat about that issue.

Awareness is not just knowing, but doing. When I was a kid, my mother always told me that if I don’t finish my food, some kid in Africa will die, and I used to think how preposterous that statement was. We as individuals are responsible for what we do, whether it’s what we do at home or at large like voting to elect our servants (AKA government).

We have neglected and for most parts forgotten our rights. Our rights have become temporary privileges that our so-called servants take away whenever they feel like it. If you ask 10 people what their political views are, 9 out of 10 will claim to be either Republican or Democrat. This is a country which was supposed to be ran by the people for the people, but it’s being run by Corporations for the Corporations.

When you go to a supermarket, there are over 100 brands of cereal, 50 different types of soft drink, 200 different brews and there is even a whole aisle devoted to tampons. But when it comes to political parties, we are only allowed to choose between two. This is not a freedom of choice; it’s an illusion of choice. The illusion that you have the right to choose between Pepsi and Coke, Captain Crunch or Corn Flakes, but in presidential debates there are only two parties to entertain the American public while they forget how badly they are getting screwed with red, white and blue bullshit being shoved down their throats.

I have no problem with Democrats or Republicans or any other party as long as they do their job which is serving the people, but do they? I’m probably coming across as a hippy dreamer or a tree huger but I’m not. I’m not against guns (I have quite a collection myself), hell I’m not even against killing people. BUT and this is a very important BUT: when it’s justified, not by the greedy corporations, but by our constitution, our true civil laws and our morals.

Let’s put the rest of the world aside for a minute and concentrate on our own country. There used to be activists who stood up to corporate greed, wrong doings and out-of-line politicians; that was 40 years ago. Speaking of politicians, in the Roman era, being a politician was an honor, a noble position to be a servant of the people, but now days, being a politician is worse than being a crook – because they ARE.

There are over 50,000 lobbyists on Capitol Hill as we speak, lobbying for their corporate bosses. They don’t care about you, they don’t care about me, they don’t care about us. All they care about is their own pocket and their own power.

People of modest means, poor, middle-class, hard working people of any race continue to elect these rich crooks to the office with hope of CHANGE but refuse to question their integrity and qualifications.

Change: \ˈchānj\. a) to make different in some particular b) to make radically different c) to become different

Maybe my dictionary is wrong or I can’t see the “change,” but I’ll let you be the judge. Have you seen any? Change for greater good that is.

One in every six adults in this country doesn’t have health insurance including me, or perhaps you too. There are 13 million children suffering from hunger in our own country. We have 680,000 homeless in this country. We have a 64% obesity rate with over 80 billion dollars in medical expenditures. The unemployment rate has rocketed to 9.5% in 2010 and that’s just the federal figures conducted by our trustworthy government, the more realistic figure is 16.6% nationally. We handed a small chunk of change, 700 billion dollars, on a silver platter to our financial criminals no question asked. If that wasn’t enough, our heroes of the auto industry took 17.4 billion dollars back home on their private jets to “save the auto makers jobs”, visit Michigan and Illinois to see how many auto workers are left. Journalists, bloggers or any schmuck with a reputable voice is forbidden to say another word about the Gulf fiasco, yet we concentrate on our “biggest issues”: abortion, gay rights, gun control and foreign policy. Good thing we have figures like Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro to pick on, otherwise the American people would actually realize there was something beyond wrong in their own homeland.

Our system has and will continue to produce a generation of obedient workers who are just smart enough to push the buttons and run the machines and dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. That’s against their interest. We are dedicated to fight street crimes given that street isn’t Wall Street. So it’s not “change” that we are seeing, for lack of a better word, it’s diversion.

And we know what happens when some brave souls stand up to these fascists, they get imprisoned, beaten and disappear. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is reality. Look back to Pittsburgh just a year ago. Water cannons, sound cannons, tear gas, batons, these are the instruments I am quite familiar with; it’s a daily life in Iran. But Pittsburgh is not in Iran, it’s in the United States of America. That’s what they got for trying to voice themselves peacefully around the G20 summit. Maybe it is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

Next time your friendly neighborhood senator comes around for more votes, don’t be fooled by their label, Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever he is, hold his feet to the fire. Put away your political brand loyalty and be loyal to your family and community. Demand your rights, your hard-earned money, your freedom. They are your servants not vice versa. Demand equal opportunity to live, demand a shelter over your head, demand three meals a day for your kids, demand free healthcare for all. If you don’t, they will happily give it to their friends and supporters on Wall Street and Capitol Hill. Know your rights, demand and take them with vengeance.

Some of you might say mind your own business, ride your damn bike and take care of the hunger issue, don’t get involved in politics. Hunger doesn’t come out of nowhere, it comes out of poverty and poverty is a bastard child of this fascism. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: imagine all the money spent on nuclear weapons and meaningless wars each year, all the embargoes and sanctions imposed upon innocent people – trillions of dollars. If we spent that money feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, not one soul excluded, it would pay for itself many times over.

Awareness is knowing and doing, otherwise it’s just a headline. A trendy buzzword. Meaningless. We are too concerned with our daily lives and the so-called “American dream” that we forget to look behind the smoke and see the fire. To see that in our own neighborhoods, there are hundreds of kids going hungry every night while we fill our shopping carts with useless gadgets and imitation food to feel better and get closer to the dream. We don’t have the power; we ARE the power.

You ask questions, I admire that. This is what everyone should do. No one should be afraid to ask. It is with questions that we get answers. Give us a helping hand. Let’s make it happen together. I hope to see a day that we shouldn’t have to call it awareness anymore. We will call it reality.

~To know and not to do is not to know