Saturday 4 October 2014

Boston


What should you not do on the day of the Boston carnival?  You should never plan a bus departure from the city.  Assuming you do plan, what should you not do before getting to the bus station?  You should not plan to visit the Boston Garden, which is a mere mile and a half from the bus station.  Assuming you do visit the Boston Garden, make sure you are late by a good 30 minutes, not 3 minutes.  Assuming you are only late by 3 minutes, do not stand at the departure gate waiting for a bus personnel to attend to you (as there will be none).  Assuming you do wait, do not open the ‘Gate’ door and run to your bus when you see it start to leave right in front of your eyes
Assuming you do open the ‘Gate’ door and run to the bus, make sure it is not your wife and child who run while you lug the suitcase behind.  Assuming they do happen to be the ones who run, get prepared to be embarrassed by the entire team of service personnel, who suddenly appear from nowhere, to read the riot act to you (ironically, these very people were invisible till a minute back).


This was us, on our very first vacation in the US using public transport.  The vacation, fortunately however, was not as dramatic and disappointing as the sequence above.  

It started with us arriving at the NY Port Authority Bus terminal an hour before departure.  Yes, you read it right.  An hour before departure when leaving for vacation and 3 minutes after departure when returning from vacation.  This should tell you how keen we were to go on a vacation and how ‘un keen’ we were to return.

Boston was a pleasant contrast to NY.  It felt rich in history and architecture, laid back and touristy.  There was no chaos…everyone seemed relaxed.  The people we interacted through the 3 days we visited, were very pleasant and hospitable. There is so much to do and a single visit for 3 days would not do justice.  We went in prepared that this would be the first of a few visits we would need to cover the city.



We reached Boston late evening on day 1 and were received by a good friend.  Dosa camp it was for dinner, and a nice coffee later, we were home all tucked up and ready to sleep.  Day 2 started with us heading to the Prudential centre to take the Duck tour.  The earliest tour available was at 4 pm.  It was only 11am then and we decided to do the city tour in the cable tram.  However, this was not before we had some awesome pizza slices at the famous Regina pizza.   The city tour took a couple of hours and was perfect for a lazy post pizza afternoon. Duck tours are city tours again, but in amphibious vehicles which half way through the tour, slide into the river for the remaining half.   Even with all the gadgetry we are used to around us, this simple transformation amazed you.  No wonder these tours are so popular with everyone.  The lady driver/ guide kept everyone entertained with snippets from Boston’s history and humour.  While on the river, she invited the kids in the bus to drive the duck… including my 3 year old…so, here were 25 to 30 adults in the middle of the Charles river, taken around in a duck/ boat by a toddler.   All the kids were awarded stickers, which said, ‘I drove a duck’…suitably impressed.  

Day 3 started early with a visit to the children’s museum.  Lots and lots to do here for kids.  No one including adults would get bored.  You would be surprised at how entertaining it is to see a ping pong ball go through long pipes and land at a designated spot.  Make bubbles, do Zumba, pedal a cycle to generate energy…loads of fun. 


We had lunch at the food court in Quincy market.  We were told that this is the most popular tourist spot in Boston.  It is so crowded that you will not have to make any effort to get lost.  Lots of options to eat but not a lot of place to sit.  Plenty of shops to pick up knick knacks.  After a couple of hours of buying nothing, we walked over to the aquarium.  We did an IMAX movie next door before getting into the aquarium.  The aquarium is good, although not spectacular.  We called it a day after this with a friend picking us up for dinner.

The next day we started late (mistake number 1) and visited the Boston Central Garden.  We took a Swan boat ride (mistake number 2) while knowing that our bus was at 2pm.  We did hear the carnival doing the rounds but failed to relate it to potential road blocks and traffic hold ups (mistake number 3).  We skipped lunch (smart move number 1) and took detours in order to get to the bus station in time (smart thing number 2).  We still got there 3 minutes late and spent the entire journey to NY discussing what should we have done differently and what could have prevented us from missing the bus…quite obvious I would imagine in hindsight.  



Boston is where politics, religion and education, all came together, making it a special place.  It is believed that just the sheer act of traveling across the Charles river to Cambridge makes you intelligent and scholarly, what with MIT, Harvard, Berklee, all located there.  We effectively travelled to Cambridge thrice in three days and missed our bus the fourth day…guess, too much of anything (knowledge, intelligence!!), is not good.

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