Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Thursday 18th - We travelled out of Massachusetts for the first time to Concord in New Hampshire.We had a master plan.We were going to drive to a UPS store (they are like FED EX etc. and offer mail services) and rent a mail box from them with a New Hampshire address.We would then buy a car in New Hampshire and register it to the mailbox address.The whole reason for this journey?New Hampshire has no sales tax and so we thought it would save us some of our hard earned dollars by not paying some over to the government.Luckily we had the sensible idea of heading to the Motor Vehicle Registry first to check the situation out and we were told there that the law has now changed and no one can buy a car in America unless they have a US resident address.We were told that if we had friends in the State who would confirm we were staying with them for our 6 month trip in writing (which we don't) then we might have a chance of buying and registering a car there.However we have since been told that to buy a car in the US you must now have a US residential address which must match the address on your driving licence, so basically you have no chance buying a car out there as a foreigner.This was a bit of a body blow and so we spent the whole trip back to Boston trying to come up with ideas for transportation.We soon forgot our worries though as it was time to head to see the ice hockey game where Boston Bruins were taking on Tampa Bay in the opening game of the season.I absolutely loved every minute of it, even though both Ralph and I did not have a clue what was going on!When we arrived we were given lots of freebies including Boston Bruins pin badges, bar style Bruins towels to twirl above our heads when they scored and a Bruins card with the word "goal" printed on to be used at the same time.The food and drinks were expensive in the stadium; if I tell you that Ralph refused to buy a beer due to the price you will know what I mean!One of the strange things we noticed was that there was no away support.This completely confused me until I thought about the distance between the teams who play in the league.It makes for a slightly strange atmosphere.It is not as charged or exciting as, say, a football match where you have opposition to aim your chants at, but on the other hand there is no need for any security and the whole thing feels extremely safe.Another thing is that ice hockey games seem to stop constantly for the playing of old fashioned organ music and ad breaks.The breaks also seem to last longer that the actual playing time!It was a shame we did not understand the rules (although Ralph and I soon spotted Boston's worst player!), at one stage I had to tap an American season ticket holder on the shoulder to ask how the players knew to change every 50 or so seconds.In the end the Bruin's won 4-1 and I really enjoyed the whole experience.
Friday 19th - This was the day we had to take our first rental car back and collect another and move hotels so it was just a day of manoeuvring really.We did go back to Quincy Market in Boston though for our lunch as it has so many places to choose from and they are all pretty cheap.We then decided to take a boat trip on the Charles River as we knew the Head of the Charles Regatta was starting Saturday and we would have no chance of doing it then.We went and waited at the side of the boat…and waited and waited and waited…and no one came!So after over an hours waiting we had to assume they had decided not to bother with the boat trip and not tell anyone!Undefeated we went to see USS Constitution and USS Cassin Young.The USS Constitution is the oldest navy ship still in service.It was an impressive sight but Ralph and I were both more impressed with the WWII ship USS Cassin Young which is meant to be a side line attraction!
Saturday 20th - This was my day to go to the Aquarium.The New England Aquarium is advertised as the biggest aquarium in North America but to be honest I was really disappointed.It is really quite small inside and there is not that much to see or do there.They do have a large tank which reaches to the height of the building and we did see some amazing penguins, seals and turtles, but something I thought was going to take all day only took one morning.We therefore decided to head into Salem for the evening and were looking forward to seeing it, especially as everyone is Halloween crazy over here at the moment.Put quite simply, Salem is amazing.When we arrived there was a street fair which seemed to stretch for miles where you could buy crafts, food, books on wizardry, listen to live music etc.Virtually everyone was dressed up.The best included people dressed as fully wrapped mummies, counts and of course hundreds of witches.My sister Kariss would have loved it there; we saw a pink punk fairy who had short bobbed pink hair, a fairy outfit complete with huge black wings and docker boots - she looked amazing!The atmosphere was terrific and every shop had a haunted show section which you could pay to get into and be scared out of your mind.The most scary of these is known as Frankenstein's Laboratory.We were looking at this place and an American family came over and gave us free tickets to get in as their daughter had just been to her first ever haunted show and was literally terrified.We took the tickets and got in the queue and then, I am ashamed to say, I chickened out.Ralph still cannot believe we did not use the free tickets and gave them to some young girls to use!I was glad though, we returned to Salem a few days later in the daytime and I saw the staff from that show chase a little boy out into the street, he was so terrified he fell over into the road!That's my excuse anyway and I am sticking to it.
Sunday 21st - This was Ralph's day at the Science Museum.It is a huge place and covers all areas of science and is really hands on, although some parts are more aimed at children.There was also not as much information relating to space as Ralph would have liked but we had a really good day there and watched a couple of IMAX films in the planetarium.When we came out we went and sat by the river in the sunshine and realised how lucky we are to be doing this whole adventure.
Monday 22nd - Today we went to Cape Ann.Cape Cod is South East of Boston and in contrast Cape Ann is North East.It is just as beautiful in its own way but maybe not as picture perfect as Cape Cod, as it seems to have some larger villages and so has a few more chain stores etc.This day was the hottest since we arrived in Boston and temperatures were in the 80's so we found a famous restaurant called The Clam Box in Ipswich and had clams in the sunshine in their picnicking area (so far we have been to places here called Manchester, Ipswich, Essex, Coventry, West Midlands, Liverpool etc. (not mentioning the obvious Boston!) and we have managed to find a Barnsley and Nottingham in Pennsylvania to visit later in the trip!).We then spent the rest of the day at a beach in Cape Ann until the sun started to set.
Tuesday 23rd- Three states in one day!We started out with another trip to Salem in Massachusetts but this time in the day, as I wanted to go to the Salem Witches Museum and visit the graves of those hung for being witches in the 1600's (I have a particular interest as I played a part in a school production of The Crucible by Arthur Millar and have been fascinated ever since.Ralph is well aware of this as I spent the majority of the time quoting my lines from the play at him!).We then swapped rental cars again (we were becoming masters of it at this stage!) and drove to our hotel in Connecticut, passing through one of America's smallest states, Rhode Island, on the way.We were finally leaving Massachusetts for good after having found a solution to our transport woes!
Wednesday 24th - Three states in one day (groundhog day!) We started off from our hotel in Connecticut and drove the short distance to Yale University so that Ralph could buy a t-shirt to go with his recently acquired Harvard one.Yale is completely different to Harvard in that it is a complete university town seemingly built just for the students whilst Harvard is full of tourists.We did not see any tourists at all at Yale on our short visit and Ralph said there was no one other than him in the "club shop" (think he is missing his football a little!).We then drove to New Jersey to pick up our FINAL rental car, which is ours until our visa expires on 11th April.Ralph has named it "The V8 Interceptor" after the car in the Mad Max films - although its only a V6 and has a slight whiff of fish about it! On the way we passed through the state of New York, including New York City where we managed to see Trump Towers (I list those first as you would not believe how many that guy owns), part of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State building, which was particularly cool as we had just finished watching the remake of King Kong!We then started our mammoth drive to Niagara Falls.We completely underestimated the distance from New Jersey to Niagara Falls (it's a big country you know!) and thought we had booked a hotel halfway - turns out we still have 4 hours driving to do tomorrow!On the plus side the views are stunning and the tree colours are much more incredible in New York state than those we saw (or rather I saw, Ralph's colour blindness is not much assistance with tree colours!) in any part of New England.
- comments