We flew Gulf Air to London and then American Airlines to Boston. I have nothing decent to say about American Airlines – although I wish I could. My brother has been a pilot for them for almost 20 years so I feel a sort of tie to them. Unfortunately after this trip, I do not. They flew us in a 757 over the Atlantic. For those of you not familiar with plane types – it’s a 3-3 (3 seats on each side) with one aisle. They flew a plane used for domestic flights (or to the Caribbean) OVER THE ATLANTIC. Next time you get on a domestic flight, imagine how much you’d enjoy being in that small space for 7 hours. Luckily, the window seat was empty so we had the row to ourselves.Not to mention, no personal televisions which made for no decent inflight entertainment.
{my view for 6.5 hours}
We arrived in Boston on Thursday night and checked into our hotel, Courtyard Marriott, near the airport. It was perfectly acceptable for what it was, a comfy bed, plenty of space and a flat screen TV. The next morning, we checked out and took the T into the city. Luckily we had a teeny bit of jet lag so we were up early at around 530 and were able to make the most of our day. We started the day off at Dunkin Donuts and had breakfast (why is Dunkin’ Donuts so popular in Boston? That was really funny to me). We were the first people in line for our Boston Duck Tour which was a quick way to see Boston since we didn’t have much time. We had a great guide and I took a bunch of pictures. I was able to see lots of areas of Boston I wouldn’t necessarily have had the chance to see.
After that, we went to Faneuil Hall. It was a cute little part of Boston and I see now where Pat Neff (you Baylor people) was taken from. Don’t tell me that isn’t the spitting image of the building on campus.
We walked around for awhile and got a few souvenirs and I admired that Boston is such a sports town. The weekend we were there was not only Game 4 and 5 of the NBA finals, home games for the Red Sox, but also the World Cup. We had a drink at a place called the Salty Dog and then headed back to the airport to pick up our rental car and Alex.
After picking up Alex, we did some shopping and then headed to the campus. The campus was so out of Dead Poet’s Society – it was really pretty. We registered, put away our stuff and took a tour of the campus, it was really cool to see where Chris spent 3 years. The reunion was a blast, I met some really cool people and laughed a lot.
On Saturday night we couldn't get away without going to Legal's Seafood - it was delicious. Chris feasted on 2.5lb lobster while I had lobster bisque and oysters. It was delish!
But back to traveling…on Sunday we went back into the city and met their friend, Adi, for lunch and we had dim sum – SOOO DELISH! I can’t even tell you what the name of it was, sorry, then we walked down Newbury Street and around Boston Commons.
I really wish we’d had a least another day to see more of Boston because there is so much history there and it is just a really cool city! We sent Alex on a bus to New York and we went on to the airport.
We flew back to London on American Airlines, on a 767 (2-3-2), but once again, they did not fail to disappoint. Not only did we take off almost an hour late (why, oh why is it so hard for a US flight to take off on time) It was almost as if they were just practicing, their video screens didn’t work, not to mention they didn’t have personal TVs [again] in the seats, what are we 1995?, the service was amateur and when we landed, I literally said “JESUS CHRIST!”, worst.landing.ever. I was also stuck in the middle seat of a middle row which was painful. After 3 hours in London, we hopped on a British Airways plane where no one apparently wanted to go to the desert. Gee, I wonder why?
So Chris and I each had our own row and were able to get some proper sleep. The staff was friendly, despite all this talk about striking and the personal TVs were great! ;)
I wish we had done more sightseeing on this trip, but hopefully we’ll get back to Boston sooner than later, and possibly do a combination trip with New York.
xoxo
