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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Boston - the disaster visit

Okay so we didn't actually get to see any of Boston.

We booked our accommodation for Boston while we were in Miami. We were in need of a short bout of respite from horrible hostels for a bit, so wanted a cheap motel/hotel and found one in Burlington.
Burlington was 20 miles out of Boston, but that was fine, we'd totally be able to get public transport in.
We did however, forget it was a Sunday.
No airport shuttles went to Burlington, we discovered when we arrived at Boston airport. Because it's not a touristy place. Okay...

It cost $80 for our taxi out there, which thank GOD we could split between us.
When we arrived, we were VERY happy with the hotel, it had 2 bedrooms, TV in each room, a kitchenette and all sorts of stuff and my internet WORKED there. Hallelujah!
HOWEVER.
There WAS VERY limited public transport to Boston, to do any sight seeing. And it would cost over $100 to get there (one way) by taxi. Okay. Cool. How about Salem. That's somewhere else I'd want to go. No public transport to Salem, and that's about $110 each way by taxi too. Oh crap.
Anything to do in Burlington? Any nice walks? The answer from the guy on the desk was, with a laugh: "Nah, I mean it's BURLINGTON." There was however, a mall down the cliff (yes our hotel was on the edge of this weird cliff) so we went there and wandered around, and had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, which was nice.

Eleanor who had NOT booked her transport out of Boston, to New York as yet booked a bus for the next morning, since we couldn't really do anything, why waste the day? Whilst I had booked my flight for the evening, so I was stuck there.
But it was okay, I got to enjoy having a private bathroom, and hello privacy! Something I had most definitely missed when living in hostels. I had to check out at 12pm, so had a good six hours to kill. So I was nearly killed when I went to the mall again and the movies.

Something Burlington is in dire lack of, is footpaths/sidewalks. It seems people don't walk in Burlington, they drive. Therefor they have nowhere for their pedestrians to go, aside from on the road in front of the traffic. It was an...erm...experience.

So I cringed in the taxi to the airport but sucked it up and paid my $80 fare, and went to check in at the self serve check in thingy. Except there was something wrong. They were being terribly helpful at Jet Blue and ushered me over to a guy to help and it turned out...my flight was yesterday. I'd booked the wrong flight. I booked it in Miami, not 24 hours after buying the dreaded voodoo bracelet.

So I had to buy ANOTHER $120 ticket. And the flight was delayed.

As much as I had been looking forward to seeing Boston - and believe me, I had been and still AM, on THIS trip? Boston was the biggest waste of money I've ever experienced. Sigh.

I arrived in New York by midnight.

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