New England

Segway and Crabs

image1440021259.jpgA really early start this am, up at 7, fed, washed and watered by 8, then off downtown for our 2 hour Segway Tour of ye oldie Boston in 77 degree scorching sunshine.

On arrival you have a photo taken for you Segway drivers license (yeh it’s a gimmick but what the heck), then it’s time for a 10 minute scarey video of a stick man being maimed, scarred, decapitated and killed on his 2 wheeler (put off yet?). If you survive this, it’s then a 10 minute getting to know your Segway (while wearing a dayglo bib and crash hat) and then you are let lose on the mean streets of Boston following your guide in single file.

What is amazing is that after literally 10 minutes on the segway, it’s like second nature to you, lean forward to go forward, back to slow down and push the lever left and right to turn (and these puppies have a 0 degree turning circle!).

So we went everywhere, USS Constitution, Freedom Trail, Bunker Hill, China Town and so much more. The guide was helpful and friendly (especially since there was just Mrs Foggy and me), not the most knowledgeable, but we enjoyed the sights and playing on the Segway (which is so, so, so cool).

After 2 hours you are quite tired continually stood and you are after all the suspension for these bad boys. Our guide exclaimed he failed his Masters at Uni so had to become a guide.

An absolutely fantastic experience and we got some shots to prove it (which we will post when we get back).

After that it was off for lunch at “Barking Crab”, whose slogan is “Everyone should have crabs” (see what they did there), for a 2lb lobster and 1lb of snow crabs. Oh Yum Yum, that did not last long and the only thing left on the table was the napkins.

An absolutely brilliant day, just about to be topped off in 3 hours by a trip to watch the Boston RedSox play at Fenway Park.

We Segway’d round here.

Cheers!

image2144674377.jpgToday was our first full day in Boston. The b&b is very comfortable, but a little warm due to their broken air con.

Its perfectly placed for the MTR and an easy walk to the main areas. We had no real plans for the day so ambled around and ended up at Faneuil Hall and Quincey Market. a tourists dream of quaint shops selling the usual touristy stuff. Quincey Market is great, a concentration of loads of food stands plus a central sitting area. It just had to be done, Lobster and corn with clam chowder. Nicely satisfied it was off next door for a pint at Cheers Bar (yes the one from the old TV show), sadly not the actual bar but a replica, a good location to sit and people watch. Over then to Long Wharfe and a sit besides the harbour before eventually catching the MTR back to the b&b.

With tired feet and Mr Fogg just having settled down for a brief siesta all hell broke lose, fire alarms going off all over the building and the owner (Rheinhold) running around arms flapping and shouting for his partner (David) who sounded so iritable and def unwilling to help. It turns out the pair returned from a trip at the weekend to find the air con broken-well rather it had frozen up, so they opted to stick the unit on heat to melt it. Hmm, melting water in pipes tends to build up, and hey presto it flooded the fire alarms causing the sensors to freak. So what did we do? stuck a bucket under the drip and went rapidly out to leave them to their bickering. Of course, returning 20 mins later we got the full diatribe of what went wrong and how naughty tourists play with the temp settings to cause the freeze in the first place. Yawn

OK, so far nice place but not great hosts and very disorganised, but at least we now have air con!

Now to decide where to eat tonight.

[Posted from Mrs Foggs super cool iphone]

Well Hello Boston

image931662766.jpgAfter a very uneventful but very empty flight over we arrived in Boston an hour late.

Mrs Foggy expertly navigated the MTR and we made it to the Encore at 1.15am UK time and boy is it hot.

Boston currently has a water main issue and you can’t drink tap water (like we would) and the aircon in the B&b is broke and it’s a heatwave.

Oh well grub and kip.

We are stopping here.

That Hanging Around Feeling

image242878292.jpgIt’s that bit of hanging around waiting for the big metal bird in the sky.

Had a very nice night at the Holiday Inn, a lovelly meal where the chef made the Mrs fresh cooked veg cos everything had onions in it and a leisurely stroll to the airport for our plane.

A nice bit of sushi and then we is off, arriving at 12.30am BST Tuesday. Then we navigate the Boston underground to our first B&B (Encore).

Next post Boston

Flew to Boston from here.