Blogs from Boston, Massachusetts, United States, North America - page 7

Geo: 42.3585, -71.0596Its been six weeks since we left for Copenhagen and now we're back in the USA! Boston to be exact. I ordered a wake up call for 6:30am last night. Add in the extra hour of sleep by setting our clocks back an hour and that made for a restful night. It does for me but Karen is up well before 6am putting together the toiletries, medicine and the last of things that need to be packed. She's anxious to get home. Our four checked luggage bags were set outside our door last night and they're already waiting for us down in the cruise terminal. All we need to carry off the ship is our personal items, basically our carry on luggage. I delay the inevitable and lie in bed while Karen finishes packing. ... read more

Geo: 42.3585, -71.0596One of the perks that Allstate provided on Saturday was a city tour and a tour of Fenway Park. Fenway Park is the oldest baseball stadium in the United States that still hosts professional baseball games. It is the home of the Boston Red Sox. We got up early walked around the area where the hotel is, and had some breakfast. Around 10 a.m. they loaded us on some buses and took us over to Fenway Park it was an amazing backstage look at the historic Stadium. Following the tour we were treated to all of the baseball food available at the stadium along with beer and sodas. Annrmarie and I dtuffed ourselves with hamburgers hot dogs and french fries. We were able to walk up to a bar and restaurant that overlooks the ... read more

Israel is probably the only place I'd suggest actually abiding by the "three hours for international flights" rule. As such, a 7:30 flight required me to be out of my place at 4:30 (ok, so 2.5 hours early. still). Luckily, our host had arranged a cheap taxi so he was waiting for me and travel to the airport was easy. But wow, security. You have to go through a scan to get into the airport at all. Another passport check before security. Then a passport and intensive questioning check at security. Then two more passport checks inside security before actually hitting the scanners. Then the scanners (this part is similar to the US). But, after the x-ray machine, they take every single person's luggage and check it thoroughly. Meaning open it, unpack it, and do the ... read more

Okay so the dreaded bus journey was nothing short of pleasant. Lots of legroom, plug socket wifi, clean toilets. Its funny really because instead of locals all we could hear across the bus was different accents and languages from around the world. It seems as though while the locals avoid such journeys, tourists and travellers make the most of them. No 'recently released' prisoners making their way home, we think. This was however with the newer bus-line 'Megabus', either way gives us hope for Greyhound. Boston has so much history to it. We never really knew much about the oldest city in the states or even much about how the US won independence prior to our stay here (we blame school). Only thing we were really aware of was its large Irish community and the popular ... read more

Geo: 42.3585, -71.0596 We ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We generally prefer to do this as it is quick and easy before a big day of sightseeing. Boston in January is also extremely cold, so it was nice not to have to walk to find breakfast.We then set off into the beautiful but very cold and windy day for our self-guided walk of the Freedom Trail. There were large chunks of ice on the grassy areas as we walked along the street and it was certainly much, much colder than we are used to here in Melbourne. We started our tour just down the road at the Boston Common, where we were all enchanted by the squirrels. We don't have squirrels in Australia, so we find them fascinating. The Common was beautiful, even in the ... read more