Cruise: Weds & Thursday

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Weds:Back in the US of A, and so we needed to be checked by US Immigration - luckily this is not a service that has been closed down following the Republicans/Democratic standoff. I guess Bar Harbor might be called touristy, even tacky - on a sunny day (like today) it's cute!! We took the tender ashore and then walked one of the prettiest shoreline walks you can imagine - one snag, it was only a mile long. We headed inland and, shock, found a coffee shop and then, shock horror, JC bought a hat - see photo!! After more strolling we stumbled across a line (i.e. queue) at an ice cream parlour. Seeing the various sizes on offer, we were wimps and wisely settled for small cones (two enormous scoops!!) of gorgeous ice-cream - JC's was blueberry (good call!!). It was now low tide and so this allowed us to casually stroll over the causeway to Bar Island and then, of course, back. Enough walking on a hot Maine autumn day for us, so we caught the next tender back. We were given a table for two at dinner (they're like hen's teeth) and replete we moved around the bars to get our fix of music - a lounge pianist, the singers from the entertainment cast doing Broadway favourites and, yep, the folk trio!!

Thurs: Boston today. The Cruise Terminal is someway out and our first dilemma was whether to catch the very rip-off shuttle bus, grab a taxi or walk. A friendly local, walking past suggested we walk into Boston and get a taxi back - great advice that we took. A 25 minutes walk later saw us sat in Starbucks drinking coffee - we've resolved the Starbucks issue here in the US, as we're pretty neutral over whether or not Starbucks pays US tax!! Now we we're on the Freedom Walk around Boston - an easy to follow red line that bisects Boston. The highlight was Paul Revere's house, built c.1680, that survived two centuries by chance before being restored for the nation in 1902. A curiosity of the Trail are the brightly coloured pianos that are dotted around for passers-by to play. At 3pm we hailed a taxi, wrestled with the agonisingly slow free www in the port, before going on deck to wave au revoir to Boston - an experience to remember as planes leaving the adjacent airport buzzed us as they banked steeply!! Interestingly we will be leaving from this same airport when we return to England. We shared the evening table with some 'interesting' characters - Kate was next to a pleasant chap, of Italian descent, who owned a 1963 Alfa 2600, whereas I drew the short straw and sat next to a James Cagney caricature who was deaf and spouted hackneyed one-liners. The evening's entertainment started with a disappointing tribute show to US 60's pop hits, but improved when we became part of a select, single figure audience that listened to the Jazz Sextet. Neither of us are Jazz enthusiasts, but it was interesting to sit a couple of feet from the band and observe them playing. The drummer laid down a solid rythym that the piano player and brass trio appeared to ignore - in essence there were three different rythyms and two tunes being played. I spoke to the trombone player at the end of the session who described this as 'counter-point improvisation'.

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