Newport, Boston

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It was a 7:30am start this morning, so I took my luggage down to the coach. A number of people were already down there, though none that I recognised. Anyway, that didn't bother me. My tour guide was to be Jordan. He was an American, who lived in the New York suburb, Lowville, and our coach driver was Silvia. She was Mexican, but lives in Inglewood, California. A couple of the guys on the tour had already met her, as she was their driver for their Grand Southern and Big Apple Explorer tours.

I sat next to Kellie this morning. She seemed a fun person, and was easy to talk too. She was from Australia. Melbourne I think. Anyway, our morning song was revealed first off. This would be the song that we would be playing first every single morning. The sort of song that would get us in the mood for travelling and driving. It turned out to be a good choice in the end, as it was the Bryan Adams song 'Open Road'.

We drove until late morning, passing through Connecticut, before stopping off at Newport, Rhode Island for lunch. We'd driven around the area beforehand, checking out the large Newport Mansions. They were huge, and were all different. So we were in Newport for our lunch stop, and a number of us checked out what was thought to be the oldest pub in North America. Newport was also a major sailing area, and was home to the Americas Cup when it was still going. A few of us went to the local Subway, and got lunch. I had a 6-inch tuna salad sub, and then a few of us went and sat by the marina, overlooking Newport Yacht Club. It was a lovely place to relax in the shade.

After an hour or so in Newport it was time to leave, departing for Boston. During the journey we watched the very first episode of 'Cheers', as Boston is where the original 'Cheers' bar is located. I'd never even seen 'Cheers' before, so it was enlightening. On arrival at Boston, in Massachusetts (our 4th state of the day) late afternoon, we went for a quick drive round. There was a lot of building work going on at the moment, as they are in the middle of 'The Big Dig', a £1-billon project, where a 10-lane underpass is being built underneath the city. Not all of Boston was being disrupted by this, just the outskirts. We then drove to our hotel, the Comfort Inn, located at Revere, near the Logan Airport.

We chilled out in our rooms for a while, before we went to the '99' restaurant a short walk down the road from the hotel, where we had our fixed dinner. Daniel, Justin and Patrick (my room-mate) were on my table. Daniel and Justin were both from Australia, and both worked in the timber industry, whilst Patrick was in between jobs, but was an accountant before he started travelling. He was from Sydney, but was currently living in London. He was another easy-going guy, who'd done absolutely heaps of travelling. I had baked scrod (a local fish) for dinner that night.

Once we'd eaten, we all took The T (subway) from our stop of Revere Beach, to Government Center, where after a short walk; we arrived at a bar called 'The Harp'. It was a great place, with the bar slap bang in the centre, and with an amazing live band, playing all my favourites, like The Killers, Bon Jovi, Green Day, Pearl Jam, Guns 'N' Roses and many more, I just knew it was gonna be a great evening. They were a good cover band, and there was also a great resident DJ mixing it up between urban and dance tunes, just to give some variety. It was a good night, and we danced and drank into the early hours. I got a cab back to the hotel with Wayne and Rebecca (Beggles).

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