Boston itself is only small and most of the time people also refer to the many surrounding cities, that seemlessly melt together. I live in Cambridge, where Harvard and MIT are also based, on the other side of the Charles River.

Metropolitan Boston is ‘wicked smaht’ with more than a hundred universities and colleges, which makes it a lively place to live, and paradise for BME students, as Boston is a hotspot in the field of medical research. It is also a good base to make trips in the surrounding area (or a little further away): Canada is very doable and I’d recommend anyone to escape the cold and fly to Mexico during Christmas break. But in between all the fun stuff I also make time to freeze pork kidneys and to calculate the temperature during this process with help of MRI scans.

With no sign of a Snowpocalypse like last year yet, I am still biking around, a nice challenge. Drivers - ‘Massholes’ - are known for their temper. Turn signals are a sign of weakness and being cut off is part of the Boston experience, just like the chaos of one way streets at weird angles and identical street names on the complete other side of town. Old folklore tells that early city planners only looked at where the cows walked to lay out the road network. The vast amount of hills also keeps you fit, but beautiful views of the skyline of Boston are offered as a reward.

At the moment I’m enjoying my last month in Boston, after which I will travel in the US for another month to properly end my adventure. See you soon Holland!