From Beantown to the Big Apple

So again you get two days for the price of one. Don’t say we don’t give you a bargain.  By the time we shopped til we dropped yesterday and repacked to head to NY we were knackered and writing just wasn’t possible.

So yesterday we started off with a tour of Fenway Park (home to the Red Sox baseball team).  Fenway is the oldest baseball stadium in the US.  It is 101 years old. It was great to see behind the scenes and what it is like with nobody in it.  We saw the grounds being maintained (they hand mow the grass) and heard all about the history of the place and the legends behind the game.  It was really quite interesting. As part of the tour we got to also see the visitors change rooms (not very big at all) and heard about the conditions in which the visitors were hosted.  For the first five years of the change rooms they had no hot water at all. Poor players!

After our tour we did some souvenir shopping at the team store and picked up a few items.  From here it was back to the hotel to dump said goods.  When we left the hotel again we headed for Beacon Hill (the cute little posh area of the city) via some farmers markets in Copley Square. We meandered our way through the cute little back streets of Beacon Hill and took many a photo.

From Beacon Hill we headed back to Quincy Markets to have a little look at some more shoes, coz Toots 14 new pairs isn’t quite enough(she is allegedly making up for all the trips to Asian countries where she can’t get skis to fit her clodhoppers, or so she says).  I would like to mention that the scarves she was collecting in India and Turkey were much easier to pack and took up less space in the case. But hey you only live once.

Once we looked at the markets we headed to the very far end of Tremont Street in search of some more shops.  We then headed back towards the hotel via Boylston St (the finish line of the Boston Marathon) and Newbury St to do some last minute checks of shops.  They are still doing building to repair the damage caused by the Marathon bombings.

We arrived back at the hotel and rested for about half an hour to rest our poor little feet and then headed for a farewell to Boston meal at the cheesecake factory.  Dinner was delicious and we got a piece of cheesecake to chair to take back to the hotel to eat while packing. Once packing was done and cheesecake consumed it was time for bed.

This morning we got ready and checked out of the hotel.  We got a cab (not sure how he fit our bags in but he managed) and headed to South Station to catch the Megabus to New York City.  This Megabus is a nonstop service from Boston to New York and cost us the huge fee of $15 total which included 4 seats for us.  We had to get extra seats to ensure that they would pack our luggage.  This was also beneficial as it meant that we had 2 seats each to spread out over which was certainly used well.  As we were boarding the bus Toot got in a slight argument with some foreigners that were queue jumping. She could have beaten them over the head with one of her 14 pairs of shoes. They of course didn’t know this and were lucky they backed down when they did. Don’t upset a Ranga!

The bus ride took about 4.5 hours (the longest part seemed to be arriving in the Manhattan traffic).  We were dumped on a random corner in downtown Manhattan.  From here it was time to hail our first NY yellow cab.  The driver was cranky as it was going to be a short fair but too long for us to manage with 3 large suitcases.  He wedged our bags in the cab and headed for the hotel.  He did get a tip for getting us there quick and pretty much in one piece and all our bags made it in the same trip.

Once we settled in to the hotel we headed out to find some food and a Laundromat.  We ate at a fancy diner (with fancy prices) but the food was tasty, decent serves, quick and was worth it.  After dinner we got some more laundry detergent and headed to the Laundromat.  We remembered our books and bag of quarters and almost passed as locals.  The damn accent is a dead give-away every time.  After being in New York for no more than 4 hours Gordo has received two “Go Sox” cheers as she is wearing her new Red Sox jumper.

 

Laundry done and hanging in our make shift Chinese laundry and we are now settling in for the night.

Til next time……..

PS Last stop before heading home, getting a little sad now.  Will you miss us if we don’t return?