Geeks, ducks and babies in Boston
We looked around Marblehead early on Sunday morning whilst most people were in bed or at church. 
Marblehead was founded by fishermen from Devon and Cornwall, and the place bore more than a passing resemblance to Topsham near Exeter but felt considerably more wealthy. The roads were small and windy, the houses and gardens immaculate; more English than American (but hey, we were in New England after all) and pleasant to wander around. The view from the old fort was a beautiful 270 degree vista overlooking the harbour. Marblehead was the birthplace of the US navy and is still a major sailing location.
It's a shame we did not have longer in the town but we had lots of things to do. So we went to the airport to change our tickets (we decided to fly from Boston to Montreal and have an extra day in Quebec rather than Miami). Our view of American Airlines didn't improve much as we spent a fair part of the morning at Boston airport queuing while a single overworked woman dealt with all the complicated queries. Our changes to our round-the-world ticket seem to have caused a lot of confusion and we had to wait ages before the tickets were re-issued, only to then discover one of our flights (unconnected to any of the changes we were trying to make) had been moved forward by two months and it now looked like we had grand total of four days to see South America in. So more waiting followed, whilst the lady was trying and failing to contact the South American airlines - they don't really do Sundays. Observing American Airlines first-class check-in queue next to our counter was quite entertaining though: the most ridiculous make-up and plastic surgery combinations walked past and the lady insisting on taking live lobsters onto her flight certainly made the time pass. Interestingly, most of Boston airports' announcements seem to come in Spanish first, then English. We were expecting this in Miami but were quite surprised to hear it in Boston.
Finally sorted, on to Boston city we drove, weaving our way from the airport to the city through a maze of tunnels.
Boston is meant to be a city where accommodation should not be too hard to come by at pretty much any time of the year, was the general opionion of our American friends. Except when a major computer graphics conference is in town, as was the case when we were visiting. During our stay in Washington, we had eventually managed to find a reasonably priced room in one of the oldest hotels in Boston: The Omni Parker Hotel. It turned out to be in an excellent location, central and close to the park.
We decided to drop our luggage off at the hotel before handing in the hire car, so saw it from a number of angles whilst we tried to manoeuvre around the one-way system and roadworks. Fortunately, it only took two gos! It was a rather grand looking hotel and had the porters in costume to match, so we got slightly worried we had got mixed up again about whether taxes were included or excluded. Fortunately, we had not, as past the grandeur of the entrance was a pretty standard hotel. Still nice though.
After dropping off the bags and the car, we headed straight out again to visit our friends Bob & Nicole and their brand-new addition Jodie, who was born just a couple of days before we got to Boston. This meant having another go on the weird and wacky system that is the Boston metro system. This time, we had to buy tickets and pass through the gates before we could get to a poster that showed us what the prices are. As the guy at the ticket desk did not seem to understand us or know the price for our destination, buying tickets involved shoving coins at him until he nodded and let us through. It then turned out that we did not have to pay any money for going outbound to the Boston's suburbs. You only pay on the way into town. The important thing is, we got there in the end. It was a lovely afternoon, so we caught up with a slightly exhausted Nicole, admired baby Josie and played with her big brother (well, he's a bit bigger), helping him cook on his mini BBQ in the garden whilst his dad prepared the best lamb kebabs we have had on our trip. On the way back into town, we discovered yet another oddity of the Boston metro. You have to pay with quarters. Bob & Nicole kindly donated a few from their collection (or was that Oscar's piggybank?) as we did not happen to have 24 quarters each on us, and we made it back 'home' allright.
The next morning, we started with a leisurely breakfast at Faneuil Hall, an area that reminded me a bit of Covent Garden: old market halls converted into shops and restaurants, which had a nice atmosphere to it. We got accosted by a lady trying to convince us that the world's governments are really run by the banks who are all linked to Hitler and that therefore capitalism is bad. We tried to ask a few questions to get to the bottom of her theory but (as we had suspected) this proved impossible to do. We cut her off when she started to use the word 'fascist' for some US government members and could not explain what she meant by 'fascist'. Having just read a book on the history of Europe which explained the origins of fascism, it was easy to counter her arguments, but she did not seem to like that, so we gave up and moved on.
Boston's city centre combines old and new buildings quite happily, which made it an interesting place to walk around, as old churches and townhouses were hiding in between gleaming sky scrapers. From the business and shopping centre, it was only a short walk to more residential district with houses that looked like they could have featured in many a US TV series: red-brick 4-5 storey building with neat steps leading up to the entrance, with delicatessen shops and cafes on every corner. 
As we did not have much time in Boston, we decided to do a sightseeing tour and joined the Boston Duck Tour. Duck Tours (which run in a number of big cities with rivers including London) are conducted with amphibious transport vehicles that were used by the US army in Vietnam and thus can take in a city by road as well as from the river. The tours are run by actors in silly costumes who provide commentary on the city and throw in a few duck-related jokes. A daft, but easy way to see the major sights and it was good fun. Our tour guide was Doctor Quack and came complete with stethoscope. She was very knowledgeable and whizzed us round most of the sights in a couple of hours.
The remainder of our time in Boston we spend wondering around and soaking up the atmosphere. Boston is a compact city and was easy to walk from one sight to another.
We followed a few cows of the international cow parade that had stopped off in Boston whilst we were there and also spent a fair bit of time in the park, having picnics, and watching people peddle around in small plastic swans on a very small lake. In addition to our swan observations, we also noticed some other species in the park at dusk. We were walking through the park on our way to find a place to eat and saw some animals scurrying around. At first, we thought they were squirrels, but a closer examination revealed them to a little slicker and a lot less cute: these were rats.
After a few days our time in Boston was up. On to Montreal, another place where the summer conference and festival calendar would make accommodation hard to find.
Marblehead was founded by fishermen from Devon and Cornwall, and the place bore more than a passing resemblance to Topsham near Exeter but felt considerably more wealthy. The roads were small and windy, the houses and gardens immaculate; more English than American (but hey, we were in New England after all) and pleasant to wander around. The view from the old fort was a beautiful 270 degree vista overlooking the harbour. Marblehead was the birthplace of the US navy and is still a major sailing location.It's a shame we did not have longer in the town but we had lots of things to do. So we went to the airport to change our tickets (we decided to fly from Boston to Montreal and have an extra day in Quebec rather than Miami). Our view of American Airlines didn't improve much as we spent a fair part of the morning at Boston airport queuing while a single overworked woman dealt with all the complicated queries. Our changes to our round-the-world ticket seem to have caused a lot of confusion and we had to wait ages before the tickets were re-issued, only to then discover one of our flights (unconnected to any of the changes we were trying to make) had been moved forward by two months and it now looked like we had grand total of four days to see South America in. So more waiting followed, whilst the lady was trying and failing to contact the South American airlines - they don't really do Sundays. Observing American Airlines first-class check-in queue next to our counter was quite entertaining though: the most ridiculous make-up and plastic surgery combinations walked past and the lady insisting on taking live lobsters onto her flight certainly made the time pass. Interestingly, most of Boston airports' announcements seem to come in Spanish first, then English. We were expecting this in Miami but were quite surprised to hear it in Boston.
Finally sorted, on to Boston city we drove, weaving our way from the airport to the city through a maze of tunnels.
Boston is meant to be a city where accommodation should not be too hard to come by at pretty much any time of the year, was the general opionion of our American friends. Except when a major computer graphics conference is in town, as was the case when we were visiting. During our stay in Washington, we had eventually managed to find a reasonably priced room in one of the oldest hotels in Boston: The Omni Parker Hotel. It turned out to be in an excellent location, central and close to the park.
We decided to drop our luggage off at the hotel before handing in the hire car, so saw it from a number of angles whilst we tried to manoeuvre around the one-way system and roadworks. Fortunately, it only took two gos! It was a rather grand looking hotel and had the porters in costume to match, so we got slightly worried we had got mixed up again about whether taxes were included or excluded. Fortunately, we had not, as past the grandeur of the entrance was a pretty standard hotel. Still nice though.
After dropping off the bags and the car, we headed straight out again to visit our friends Bob & Nicole and their brand-new addition Jodie, who was born just a couple of days before we got to Boston. This meant having another go on the weird and wacky system that is the Boston metro system. This time, we had to buy tickets and pass through the gates before we could get to a poster that showed us what the prices are. As the guy at the ticket desk did not seem to understand us or know the price for our destination, buying tickets involved shoving coins at him until he nodded and let us through. It then turned out that we did not have to pay any money for going outbound to the Boston's suburbs. You only pay on the way into town. The important thing is, we got there in the end. It was a lovely afternoon, so we caught up with a slightly exhausted Nicole, admired baby Josie and played with her big brother (well, he's a bit bigger), helping him cook on his mini BBQ in the garden whilst his dad prepared the best lamb kebabs we have had on our trip. On the way back into town, we discovered yet another oddity of the Boston metro. You have to pay with quarters. Bob & Nicole kindly donated a few from their collection (or was that Oscar's piggybank?) as we did not happen to have 24 quarters each on us, and we made it back 'home' allright.
The next morning, we started with a leisurely breakfast at Faneuil Hall, an area that reminded me a bit of Covent Garden: old market halls converted into shops and restaurants, which had a nice atmosphere to it. We got accosted by a lady trying to convince us that the world's governments are really run by the banks who are all linked to Hitler and that therefore capitalism is bad. We tried to ask a few questions to get to the bottom of her theory but (as we had suspected) this proved impossible to do. We cut her off when she started to use the word 'fascist' for some US government members and could not explain what she meant by 'fascist'. Having just read a book on the history of Europe which explained the origins of fascism, it was easy to counter her arguments, but she did not seem to like that, so we gave up and moved on.
Boston's city centre combines old and new buildings quite happily, which made it an interesting place to walk around, as old churches and townhouses were hiding in between gleaming sky scrapers. From the business and shopping centre, it was only a short walk to more residential district with houses that looked like they could have featured in many a US TV series: red-brick 4-5 storey building with neat steps leading up to the entrance, with delicatessen shops and cafes on every corner. As we did not have much time in Boston, we decided to do a sightseeing tour and joined the Boston Duck Tour. Duck Tours (which run in a number of big cities with rivers including London) are conducted with amphibious transport vehicles that were used by the US army in Vietnam and thus can take in a city by road as well as from the river. The tours are run by actors in silly costumes who provide commentary on the city and throw in a few duck-related jokes. A daft, but easy way to see the major sights and it was good fun. Our tour guide was Doctor Quack and came complete with stethoscope. She was very knowledgeable and whizzed us round most of the sights in a couple of hours.The remainder of our time in Boston we spend wondering around and soaking up the atmosphere. Boston is a compact city and was easy to walk from one sight to another.
We followed a few cows of the international cow parade that had stopped off in Boston whilst we were there and also spent a fair bit of time in the park, having picnics, and watching people peddle around in small plastic swans on a very small lake. In addition to our swan observations, we also noticed some other species in the park at dusk. We were walking through the park on our way to find a place to eat and saw some animals scurrying around. At first, we thought they were squirrels, but a closer examination revealed them to a little slicker and a lot less cute: these were rats.After a few days our time in Boston was up. On to Montreal, another place where the summer conference and festival calendar would make accommodation hard to find.
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