Day 1 - John

The choir were thrilled that Ralph managed to change the starting time today from 8:00 to 7:45, giving us a whole fifteen minutes of extra time to rehearse, before singing to a packed assembly hall.  Daniel Parr and Sam Jordan were evidently so confident in their ability to sing from memory that they left their music folders with their home-stays; this confidence was not shared by Ralph.  The Roxbury Latin audience was treated to detailed analyses of the canonic structure of Brahms's Geistliches Lied, accompanied by Edward Picton-Turbervill, before our performance.  The concert passed without incident.

After our performance to over a hundred boys, Ralph was particularly excited that we had "lots of lovely time for rehearsals", although his excitement seemed to wear down as we got closer and closer to the time our train into Boston departed; he did, however, let us know that the concert was more important than catching the train and that we could always catch one two hours later, just to put our minds at rest.

We spent four hours in and around the Quincy Market in Boston, where we were confronted with a multitude of delights, ranging from taco burgers to pizza burgers to pizza bagels.  Some more adventurous members of the choir bought Andrew Maynard a more advanced species of pet rock, which had evolved a USB port, to replace his old friend, now sadly deceased.  Towards the end of our visit, we had largely exhausted the potential of the market for amusement, and had taken to ever more inventive use of a certain statue to while away the time.

Todays nomination for best entrepreneurship goes to Rubin "You haven't got a quarter?  I'm fine with a dollar" Patel and Hugo Popplewell who managed to sell off their surplus of unwisely purchased saltwater taffy to the unwitting James Harkness, David Goode and others. In contrast to this, Quintin Beer's fury at having to pay $2 for a bottle of water was magnified as we walked past a shop advertising the same bottle, "two for $2". The nomination for best celebrity agent also goes to Rubin, for drawng the attention of a group of girls towards the remarkable similarity between James Picton-Turbervill and Justin Bieber, sending them wild with excitement.  The honorable mention for a valiant attempt at getting something for nothing goes to Edward Picton-Turbervill, who tried to convince a shopkeeper to let Timothy Khoury have a Toxic Waste sweet for free after he had declined a receipt, citing their promise that, "If we don't give you a receipt, it's on us".  However, the ultimate prize in this category must go to John Gowers who, turning up with a Pic 'n' Mix bag containing a single rice paper figure of a baby's dummy and attempting to pay with a nice crisp twenty dollar bill was told in no uncertain terms just to take it for free and get out of the shop.  A special mention for archaeological merit should also go to Richard Gowers, for managing to pick all the bananas out of a selection of assorted fruit-shaped sweets.

For some people, the most exciting thing about the day was returning on a double-decker train.  Chief amongst the amusements on the train was the second deck, although a head massager and a pair of John-Lennon style sunglasses bought in the market gave it a run for its money.

That is the end of today's blathering; log on tomorrow for more.

John Gowers (Venue checker and keeper of questions of ontological existentialism) 

and Hugo Popplewell