Wednesday 21st September 2011

[08:23 +1]

We had a late night today, so I'm writing this the following morning.

The day started misty, we could see the airport - just. However, it soon warmed up.

Our first task of the day was to take our car rental back to Thrifty - as we are being charged $33 per day to park the car in the Hotel, plus the daily rental of the car itself, plus the fact that Boston isn't really a driving city (much like New York).

[10:27+1]

Bit of a delay there - the breakfast arrived! ;)

Anyway...

We returned the car with relative ease and we hopped onto a shuttle bus back to the airport. From there we caught a cab into the centre of town and started our Freedom Trail walk through the city centre. It is a walking route marked in red on the floor, that guides you around some of the most important locations in Boston's early history. As we got towards the end of the trail, we reached a booth selling 'super' Duck Tours tickets. For those that have not done this before, it's a tour that takes place in an amphibious vehicle, allowing you to see the city from the road and later, it splashes into the water to allow you to sail around the harbour for a while.

The main guide on this trip was very good - amusing and knowledgeable too. This was our 'duck'.

It made quite a splash as it entered the water - fortunately, although the water went right over the front of the duck, we stayed dry inside despite the open sides.

The tour dropped us back off back at the pick up point at just gone 4:30. We walked back to the hotel and had a quick breather before making our way out again. This time we were heading for Fenway Park - the home of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. They were playing the Baltimore Orioles tonight and we had tickets!

The trip there was mainly done on the subway system here - the T. It's mostly a normal train type affair, but oddly, our first part of the trip was on the Silver line, this is what I can only describe as an underground bus route. The stations look like subway stations, but instead of tracks, there's a small 6 inch drop down to a flat road. The carriages look like small subway cars except they have tyres and the driver has to steer the 'bus' through the tunnels as there are no rails.

We got to Fenway Park at around 7pm and made it through the mania outside to arrive in the stadium just as the National Anthem was playing. It was apparently a sell out 32,000 crowd.

It was quite an enjoyable game. Linda was worried that the game might turn into a marathon like one we'd seen on TV a few nights ago (also between Boston and Baltimore) where they hadn't finished the game until gone 11pm. However, this game was a lot faster and by 9pm we were into the last three innings.

Final score - Baltimore Orioles beat the Boston Red Sox 6 - 4.

We walked back to the T station to catch the subway / busway back to the hotel and was back indoors by 11pm. All in all a good evening I think.