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We had to get our skates on to return the hire car to (H)etrz at Bangor International Airport, about an hour's drive away. This meant that Jill had to brave the dual challenge of driving an automatic car on the wrong, that's the right, side of the road for the first time whilst we've been away. She'd taken the house swap car out for a little test drive yesterday just to get the feel of it: fortunately the swap car is a C-class Mercedes so very like our car and the controls are familiar. This though was a more significant challenge driving alone, on busier roads, including a short section on an Interstate Highway. But all went well: phew!
We'd begun to plan meals and a grocery shopping list the night before, drawing a bit on recipe books in the house (interestingly the books in this house have made us realise that we've being staying in homes that have been pretty devoid of books to-date, this is the first home with a significant number of books) but needed to complete it so we stopped for coffee just outside the airport on our way back to work on the list. This turned out to be a lovely little cafe with really nice icecream. We particularly liked the black raspberry, we can't work out if this is blackberry or really a fruit we don't have. The American language is a constant mystery as they use the same words we do except to identify different things! Anyway, the black raspberry icecream was delicious.
Shopping planned we drove back to Bucksport, our nearest large town to do the grocery shopping for our stay in Castine. Then back to the house in time to Skype with Sarah which was lovely! We'd caught up with Dan the day before which was great too: Skype really is a clever way to stay in touch. We've had good wifi at all of the places we've stayed but don't always have a phone signal (Castine is a case in point) so Skype is possible when phone calls aren't and it's free, and you get to see who you're talking to too!
We fitted in a quick stroll around our end of Castine, very clear that there is a lot of history to explore here: more about that when we walk around the rest of the village. The village is situated on a natural deep harbour which is one reason why it is home to the Maine Maritime Academy. The 'State of Maine' the huge training ship is docked in the harbour and the Academy students are much in evidence around the harbour side. You'd think that this number of young people (we were told there are 850 students enrolled this year) skewing what is otherwise a wealthy, older community would impact significantly on Castine's population of around 1350 but there isn't really any evidence of this being a student dominated town. Our house has a student lodger in the attic room over the garage and we guess a lot of homes must rely on income from this source to some degree, whether it is from renting rooms/car parking spaces or through employment at the Academy but the students must live very quiet lives, as only a couple of bars and no clubs here. The town certainly shows little sign of catering for its relatively large student population.
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Elaine Interested to hear you have had problems with phone signal, my naïve assumption was that all the US including Maine would be well covered.
Jill Yep - has surprised us too! We are in a small village but I've also had no signal when we visit a nearby town. Sure it will improve as we get further South into more densely populated areas.