Saturday, 2 October 2010

New York to Boston


Little green car next to our huge SUV

It’s raining; heavily....the trip to pick up the hire car is awash with spray. We collect a very funky pale green car, almost escape the control gate only for the attendant to say “Oh Oh it’s a turn back, this car has a recall on it.” Seeing Dave’s face she realises that she needs to sort something out quick, in true US style she says turn around and pick any car in the compound. So the Green funky machine is replaced by a serious Silver Hyundai Sante Fe. This will probably cost twice as much on petrol but Dave’s well pleased and with minimum of fuss all paperwork is revised and we are finally on our way. It still raining and we make only two blocks before we hit traffic.

The drive down through Long Island was slow, abandoned cars littering the sides of the road, school buses and yellow taxis crawling along with us. The Americans certainly haven’t embraced the small car culture....There again nor have we now! At first there is very little sign of the leaves turning to yellow never mind red but gradually the hues change. I feel at this point I must mention the third person on the trip, Gertie the Sat Nav; so far she’s been spot on a good travelling companion. The further we get from New York, the more rural it becomes, stalls offering pumpkins and signs for pick your own (what do you do with a boot full of pumpkins?). At the very tip of the north fork of Long Island is Orient Point, the sign helpfully says road ends in 500yards!

Jan on her cruise!

The Cross Sound Ferry is definitely a working ship not a cruise ship as Dave’s trying to sell it as. Plastic seats, a neon sign covered bar and cafe selling sandwiches and pretzels with the TV blaring over it all. An hour and a half later we enter Connecticut; the typical mid American sound of a train passing greets us. The trip up to Boston is wet but the trees are definitely beginning to wear their autumn coat.


Finally, the outskirts of Boston and Friday night traffic, awful. We crawl our way into the centre of Boston, at this point the reliable Gertie has obviously had enough and proceeds to contradict herself every second direction but Dave’s brilliant city navigation skills come to the fore, as she’s female he ignores her (wise move) and we arrive outside 21 Beacon Street.

We are greeted by the Apartment owners Peter and Jane who go over all of the essential info. The apartment is beautiful, great views over Boston Common and the State House, especially dramatic at night with the lights of the skyscrapers in the background. We are going to the Beehive tonight and after setting off in the wrong direction (I’m blaming the Jet Lag) a friendly cabbie puts us right and we reach the Beehive. A great venue with a great table on the gallery, overlooking the pretty female jazz singer on-stage. The meal is excellent, Porogies (still don’t know what they are but they taste good!), slow roasted beef and scallops. After such a full 24 hours, jet lag catches up, unable to stay awake to see the Blues band Dave opts to take me home before he has to carry me...It’s still raining so we opt for a taxi back to Beacon Street and bed. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be good as predicted by the TV weatherman and we can start our exploration of Boston.




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