El Paso

We got into El Paso later than anticipated, as the trains were delayed. So it was about half past nine by the time we got to the hostel. It was rather empty. We found a film to watch on the TV in the common room, so crashed out on the sofa to watch that. It's surprising how travelling by train can make you tired. I think it's worse when the train is delayed becuase it's all very tedious, especially when the train is barely moving for hours at a time.

The next day we weren't really in the mood for doing much, so we mainly just hung out in our room reading, after going to the shop to get some food. Not many places were open as it was a Sunday, so it was good that we weren't in the mood for doing much. In the late afternoon Oz decided he was bored and we should go out, so we went downstairs to get some food first, where we met Suzanne, another hosteller, who was from Leeds. Then Antonio, who works in the hostel, appeared and said he was taking us all out for fried ice cream in the evening and to see the city lights from a viewpoint high up in one of the hills surrounding the city. So we stayed in the kitchen for a while chatting to Suzanne before piling into Antonio's car to drive up to the viewpoint (you can't get there by foot or bus).

Views of the lights:
Most of these lights are actually across the border in Juarez - the border is the bit about 1/3 from the bottom of the picture that sort of looks like a road going horizontally across.
Lights and mountains all artistic-like.

Afterwards we got fried ice cream, which was very tasty! It was ice cream rolled in sugary rice crispie-like things, then deep fried. Then we went back to the hostel and played some pool.

The next day we ventured into Mexico with Suzanne and a German guy who was also staying at the hostel. Safety in numbers, etc... We had no trouble getting across - you pay the 25 cent toll for the footbridge then walk across. Juarez was... interesting. Every other shop was a pharmacist or optician. The main road (leading to/from the bridge) was mainly in one piece, but when you looked down the side streets to the roads running parallel you could see that the buildings were very shabby - one had an entire collapsed corner and there was just a big pile of rubble in the road. We wandered around looking for the market until some Mexican man led us there, then wouldn't leave us alone. We stopped for a drink and he wandered off to a tequila shop opposite (saying something about how we should get chocolate tequila...) so we tried to pay quickly then disappear into the market, but he popped up again. Then we tried to go out of a random back exit of the market, but he still managed to catch us up then wouldn't stop being our "tour guide" until we gave him a few dollars. After that we decided to find some lunch, so we filed into the nearest cafe we could see. We were slightly off the beaten track by this point and it turned out that nobody in the cafe spoke any English. None of us spoke any Spanish either, so we basically had to guess what to order, using the few paltry bits of vocabulary we knew. I ordered eggs and the waitress asked me if I wanted them with ham or on their own, which of course I didn't understand, so she had to get another customer to translate. The food itself was very cheap but also pretty terrible, so afterwards we decided we'd had enough and headed back to the bridge that would take us (hopefully) back to sanity. It was a lot slower getting back into the USA, as there were many people going that way and everyone had to have their documents checked. Of course we had no trouble getting back into the USA, which was quite a relief as I think we'd all had enough of Mexico by that point!

That evening we hung out at the hostel. We made some cookies because we'd bought some eggs and there was sugar and flour that other people had left, only then I left them out on the side and the next day they had all been eaten, I hope by the people running the hostel because we did say they could have some. Our train on Tuesday was at some time after 5, but we got up late and weren't inspired to do much as it was so hot, so we bummed out some more in the common room, playing pool (it was free) and I made some more cookies because I found some oats this time and there were still ingredients left. We had a slight hiccup getting on the train - Oz phoned up the automated hotline that tells you what time your train is at soon before we were planning to leave just to check it wasn't delayed, and it suddenly decided that our train was half an hour earlier than the time on our tickets, which meant we had 15 minutes to get to the station. So we hurriedly grabbed our stuff and practically ran to the station and jumped on the train... to sit there for half an hour until it left at the time it was originally meant to.

The journey to LA was long (had to go across the whole of New Mexico) and overnight, but it was quite busy so we couldn't stretch out over two seats as we had been doing previously. I couldn't sleep for a long while and wasn't very comfortable, but we arrived in LA half an hour early, around 10am. We were both pretty tired and ready to go straight to San Francisco, or at least to go to our hostel and relax for a while before taking in LA... alas, it was not to be.

San Antonio

We were pretty tired by the time we got to San Antonio. It was meant to be a 3.5 hour train journey from Austin, arriving at 10:30pm, but I think we didn't even leave Austin til about 11. So though we got up for breakfast at the Travelodge at 9 (no sense passing up free food after all), we went straight back to bed afterwards and didn't head out until lunch time. Thus our first stop naturally was a cafe, where we had a very tasty lunch. San Antonio was pretty quiet compared with Austin, but everything was in walking distance which was nice, as public transport is ok but it can take an age to get from A to B sometimes.

Obviously the first thing we felt obliged to see was the Alamo, which confused us at first because we didn't fully read the signs so then we didn't really get what was going on. But once we'd figured it out it all made sense. Basically it's all to do with the Texas Revolution: first the Mexicans had it (the Alamo) then were driven out by colonists, who defended it against the Mexicans even though it seemed like a sure thing that they would lose, which they did in a short battle one day that started before dawn and finished by morning time. Anyway, it's all about it being an heroic struggle against impossible odds, etc. Also Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were there fighting with the Texians, so they have a bunch of stuff about that too. Well, I'm sure that was a very illuminating account for you all but I never was that into history :P However I did enjoy the gift shop, which was full of Texas- and Alamo-themed souvenirs such as Alamo biscuits (shaped like the front of the Alamo), Texas flags, magnets etc, Sheriff badges, etc etc etc. I bought a bonnet because they'd had them in the cool museum shop in St Louis but I didn't buy one then because while I thought it would make a fun silly souvenir I couldn't think of any sensible reason to buy one. But I decided that if I saw one elsewhere I'd buy it, then Oz said if he saw a Mexican wrestling mask somewhere he'd buy it, because we'd seen those previously as well and he'd wanted one for the same reasons as me but hadn't bought one.

Afterwards we went to the Mexican market, which was filled to the brim with tat, but we both bought genuine Mexican blankets because they were only $6 and the over-zealous air conditioning on the trains was starting to get to us, especially at night because it's hard to sleep when it feels like all of San Francisco's finest breezes are breathing down your neck (more on that later). Oz also bought a Mexican wrestling mask, because I'd bought my bonnet. We also went to a pharmacy because somehow I managed to get a cold. In Texas. Where it was 35+ degrees Celsius. I blame the trains! Then we walked along the river for a little while before heading back to chill out for a little bit. 

In the evening we found a big shopping center to go to, so we went there and bought hats in the hat shop and I got some shorts (not from a shorts shop), then we had some dinner in the food court. We've learned that mall food courts are good places to get cheap, half-decent food. The American food courts are generally a lot more extensive than English ones and there's always a Chinese option so you can get vegetables, or a place to get salad (though, salads here are quite often some leaves drenched in sauce with lots and lots of cheese on top). On our way back we stopped in a convenience store to get some food for the train to El Paso, as the train was at 5:40am and was 12.5 hours long, and train food is limited and not cheap or particularly nice - microwave pizza anyone? 

Oz in aforementioned Mexican wrestling mask...

...and me wearing my bonnet. I think we both look rather fetching! 

Keep Austin Batty

All right! So as you have noticed I finally got a chance to update. Lazing around in California is difficult I tells ya! Where did I get up to...

...Oh yes, Texas. A little note on Texas is in order here, I think. The guidebook tells me that Texas is just under 262,000 square miles, or larger than Germany and Poland combined. And it surely is a force to be reckoned with. Everywhere you go in Texas there is the feeling that everyone is inwardly (if not outwardly) going "WHOO TEXAS! YEAH!". Or, "yee-aah," as Texans add extra syllables into many words: Car = Caw-uh, All right = Aaall raa-yit, etc. Everywhere there are Texan flags, images of Texas, Lone Star and Longhorn memorabilia, etc. I really liked it because I felt like many of the places we'd been didn't really give us a sense of where we were, if that makes sense. Obviously NYC is totally unique and you could never mistake it for anywhere else. But Cincinnati could have been anywhere. If we hadn't been to the Missouri Botanical Gardens while visiting St Louis, you could be forgiven for not knowing what state it was in. But most of Texas was is so very decidedly Texan that you'd have trouble mistaking where you are, even way south near Mexico. So I really enjoyed the character and identity of Texas throughout, which, I can tell you, was a pretty long throughout: we spent about a week and a half in Texas, and countless hours on trains going past mountains and through deserts baking in the sun. 

We both really liked Austin, though it was SO HOT. You'd walk three blocks then want to sit down with a nice cold drink. We stayed in the Austin Motel, which was a very lovely place. Our train was super-delayed from Dallas and when we got to Austin late at night, some nice people on the train offered us a ride to the motel rather than us having to get a taxi, as the motel was only about 10 minutes' drive from the station and vaguely in their direction. So we were off to a good start. On our first day there (Tueday 26th Aug) we wandered around downtown and visited the Mexic-Arte museum, then went back to SoCo where the motel was to see the quirky shops there. After dinner we headed back to 6th Ave to take in the nightlife. Austin is renowned for its live music scene, and we weren't disappointed (well, with free live music almost everywhere and $2 beers, who would be?). As we went out quite early, many of the bars were pretty empty but it gave a nice intimate feel - in the second one we went to, the guy playing had a break in the middle of his set and went and talked to everyone in the bar (we had a conversation about jeans and he told Oz that he liked his style). We met a bunch of guys also staying in the Austin Motel who were from London and were there because one of them was getting married, so we talked to them about Austin and things to do here. Then we went to the Coyote Ugly bar where the bartenders were dancing on the bar and it was just a bit odd so we left soon afterwards and walked back to the motel.

The next day we got up late and had some brunch in a Mexican cafe that was practically next door to the motel. I had a tasty omelette served with fruit, which was just what I needed! Then we found a bus to take us to Zilker Park, Austin's favoured open space. There's a pool there fed by spring water so is a constant 68F (20C) all year round and a place to rent canoes. So we spent a nice afternoon paddling down the creek then up and down a little bit of the river. I really liked the creek because there were wild turtles everywhere (I think we hit one or two unlucky ones that didn't move out of our way quick enough...) and fish and big trees sticking out of the water that you could go underneath and paddle around. It was very peaceful and lovely. It wasn't too deep and you could see all the plants growing on the bottom. Afterwards we went for a little paddle in the spring water, which was SO COLD. So we didn't stay too long. We decided to go and look around the botanical garden instead. We saw most of it - it was divided into different bits like the cactus garden, the butterfly garden and the Japanese garden, which was the best. It had been built/donated by a Japanese man and it was very beautifully designed with waterfalls and a little bridge and trees. After wandering around for a while we were pretty hot and tired so we headed back to the motel and got some microwave burritos for our dinner (which sound disgusting but they were from this little organic supermarket place so they weren't full of rubbish and were actually pretty decent, especially for under $3!). We also had a swim in the pool, which being outdoors in Texas was lovely and warm. Then we went to see the big evening event in Austin, which is the bats coming out from under the bridge. The bridge has a colony of 1.5 million bats living there. They come up from Mexico to have their babies, and after sunset they all stream out to go and find their insect dinners. In the day you can hear them all chittering in there but you can't see them. It was pretty impressive to see them all coming out but they smelt pretty bad! 

On our last day in Austin we went up to see the University of Texas campus, which was rather nice, and it felt good to be surrounded by students again! We didn't have too much else to do, but as we'd checked out of the motel we had to kill time until our train, so we headed back downtown and went to the Museum of the Weird on 6th Ave, which we'd noticed before. It was incredibly cheesy but pretty awesome, worth the entrance fee anyway! It was like an old-time dime museum, with shrunken heads, a two-headed calf, a supposed Fiji mermaid, and a Mummy. We'd called the Amtrak hotline beforehand and discovered our train was delayed, so as we still had a few hours to kill we decided to see a film. The only thing showing was Tropic Thunder, which turned out to be ok. But the cinema itself was worth seeing. In front of each row of seats was a long table, and each seat had a menu in front of it so you could order food by writing down your order then clipping it into the stand in front of you. Then someone would come and get your order and bring your food and bill. Of course, being a cinema it wasn't exactly cheap, but they gave you a decent-sized serving and it was pretty tasty. When the film ended it was time to head to the station. Annoyingly our train was even more delayed so we had to wait there for a couple of hours. While I liked Texas itself, the Texas Eagle was most definitely not my favourite train!

The bats. They were hard to take photos of as it was completely dark and they were moving so fast, but this will hopefully give you some idea.

Bah + Dallas

Well I tried uploading some photos but it was going really slowly (or not at all) so I gave up. I have these pictures of Oz eating a lime in St Louis to balance out the ones of me eating a lemon in Boston, but I guess they'll have to wait a little while.

I forgot to mention before but when we went to Delmar we were filmed by some people making a TV show for American TV. It was about Easter and Christmas and they asked us questions about what Easter/Xmas meant to us and what advice we'd give to a person who was stressed over Christmas because they had to see relatives they didn't like. All rather random. 

Anyways. Our next stop was Dallas. Many people have told us that it's an odd place for tourists to go. I agree, but it was either stop in Dallas or have a train journey starting at 8pm one day and finishing in Austin at 6pm the next. So, we stopped in Dallas. We stayed at a Marriott hotel near Addison, far out from Dallas really but it was very cheap, and had a pool and gym etc. Also the breakfast was included in the price and was quite extensive. In fact we had lots of food for breakfast then took enough with us to feed us for the rest of the day on fruit, cereal bars, bagels, bread rolls, cheese, muffins, cake, cereal and milk (cool bag + ice = instant refridgeration). There was also a free shuttle bus to the Galleria mall, which was pretty massive and had an ice rink in the middle of it on the bottom level. Very sensible when it's 35C outside. So the evening we got there we shopped and ate in the mall food court. I found some snug boots that I wanted for winter, but figured I'd buy them in a different branch of the shop when we'd completed our travels. 

On Sunday we got on a bus to take us to Downtown Dallas so we could go to the Sixth Floor Museum, which tells you all about JFK being shot. It's on the sixth floor (obviously) of the building where Harvey Lee Oswald (apparently) shot him from, though they did tell you a bit about the conspiracy theories and alternate theories involving the grassy knoll. Outside on the road is a big white X at the precise spot where he was shot. All very tasteful, especially when there are grinning Japanese children standing around it having their photos taken by their parents. It's a wonder people don't get run over there, as it is just in the middle of the road. Afterwards we had a wander through the "historic district" which mainly consisted of random shops. We found Wild Bill's Western Store (see http://www.wildbillswestern.com if you're interested , full of all things Texan, where Bill himself helped us find some cowboy boots to buy. Now there was an extremely Texan man. Then we went back because it was extremely hot, and Return of the King was on so that kept me entertained all evening.

Adventure in Maryland, or, how Li got SHOT IN THE FOOTs

Okay, so Oz is being really rubbish about updating the blog, and he keeps hogging the laptop so I can't update it either. Or he gives it to me when I'm really tired and can't be bothered. Well, we've been having busy days!

Sunday at Ethan's: we have a lie-in, which feels pretty good, then take the opportunity to do an American activity, namely, going to a range and shooting guns. We wanted to do this with Ethan because he's responsible and actually knows how to work guns, so we won't shoot ourselves (that doesn't mean that we won't get shot by other people, though). So we pick up Pat (another American Oz met in halls last year), who also has never shot a pistol, who lives in Virginia. It's kind of cool driving around there because you can go into three states in about as many minutes. We got a little lost trying to find the range, but we got there in the end. To give you a little background on this place, their website advertised Monday's: Ladies' Night, Wednesdays: Couples' Night and Fridays: Parent and child night. 

We got two 9mm pistols, a Glock and a Sig, and three boxes of ammo between the four of us. Then, armed with our earmuffs and... arms, we assumed position in our lanes. Ethan had, of course, shown us how to load and fire the gun, and how to eject the magazine afterwards (because you should always set the gun down with the magazine out before you step away). I went last because I was frightened, but I think Oz and Pat were too, just hiding it better or being manlier! I wasn't good at loading the bullets at first because the spring was kind of strong and my fingers kept slipping on the bullets, but after a couple of goes getting Ethan and Oz to do it for me, I managed to work it myself. Shooting was surprisingly fun after the initial fear, though I was rubbish at aiming.

Then, I got SHOT IN THE FOOT. Not really. The guy to our right was firing increasingly large and scary guns, and as I was getting ready to fire, he fired and something flew off from somewhere and hit me in the foot (flipflops clearly being sensible footwear), scratching me and drawing blood in two places. Luckily I lived to tell the tale, and get lunch afterwards. Pat stabbed Ethan's cup with a cocktail stick so his soda was squirting out, so Ethan naturally got revenge by attempting to drive off without Pat. I think all the people in the parking lot thought we were crazy. After lunch we went to wander around Old Town in Alexandria, VA, which by our standards was really not that old. Then we all headed back to Ethan's place for Halo and a Taco Bell dinner where Oz ate entirely too much.

On Monday Oz and I went into DC, which we both really liked. It was possible to do everything in one day, as it's all really close and easy to get to. We started off at the Capitol then walked along the Mall to the Smithsonian air and space museum, where we saw moon suits and spacecraft and the original Wright Brothers plane, etc. We also went to the Natural History Museum, which I greatly preferred over the one in NYC, though we didn't spend too long looking around there. I'm developing a fascination for natural history museums, though Oz doesn't share my enthusiasm quite so much. So what did we do instead? We went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. We wanted to go to the museum of American history, but it was shut until September for some reason. The Holocaust museum was entirely depressing (as I expected), but afterwards we wandered around the Washington Monument, Reflecting Pool and Vietnam Memorial then up to the Lincoln Memorial. All very lovely, and we saw the White House afterwards too, where there were some amusing children. One was very disappointed when told she couldn't go in. The other asked her dad if George Bush drove a Mini Cooper.

Dad: I don't think so, he has a limo with lots of security

Child: Why?

Dad: In case someone tries to shoot him

Child (incredulous): But who would want to shoot him, Daddy?

Dad (very serious tones): Crazy people, honey. Crazy people.

We got back kind of late, but Ethan kindly drove us to the supermarket so we could get some food for dinner. We thought we were leaving on Tuesday, but when I checked our tickets it turned out we weren't leaving til Wednesday, so we had a whole extra day to play with. So, we went to Arlington cemetary and had a picnic lunch nearby (obviously you can't picnic in the actual cemetary). It was cool to see but it was sooooo hot - didn't help that we didn't get there til about 1 because when we called a taxi to take us to the subway station they didn't make a record of it so we had to call them again - but we saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns, and Kennedy's grave. It was too hot to wander around any more so we came back and had a look around Rockville, getting smoothies to refresh us. Then we went back to Ethan's, packed our bags and had some dinner. More Halo was played until around midnight, when we went to bed so we could get up fresh the next morning to get on a train to... Cincinnati.

we were hiding from the rain, we were riding on a train

Last Tuesday in Concord we didn't do much of anything. Well, we discovered that we'd booked a hostel in Charleston, South Carolina and a train ticket to Charleston, West Virginia, which was slightly less than ideal. So we spent the afternoon re-jigging that part of the trip. The hostel hadn't been paid for, so we cancelled that and got another train ticket to Cincinnati, so we're going there instead of Charleston, WV and are staying in a Travelodge that's costing us £18 each for the night. We're actually saving money as the train is at such antisocial hours. We get in at 1am and leave at 1am, so that saves two nights' accommodation :P

On Tuesday we were going to go to the beach but it was apparently going to rain, so we went to the aquarium with the Concord Cownies instead - Boris took some time off work so we could have a fun family outing. We had a tasty lunch in Quincy market, where the waitress couldn't understand Oz's English pronunciation of "ranch dressing". Then we went to the aquarium and saw fish and penguins and got to touch some stingrays (with their stings removed) and some extremely small sharks. Afterwards we went back to the market for ice creams and a wander. It was dark when we got back but Oz and I took Blackie to the lake because he'd been indoors all day.

Maureen drove us to the station on Wednesday morning. We chose the right day to leave Concord, as it was raining a lot and was forecast to do so for the next few days. We got to the station early as we had to pick up our extra tickets, and we wanted to make sure we knew what we were doing. But Boston South is easy to navigate and we soon found ourselves on board the Acela regional, which runs from Boston South station to Washington, DC Union station. From Boston to NYC is 431 miles, and we went through Rhode Island and Connecticut on the way. I spent most of the time looking out of the window at the scenery. It might not sound too thrilling but it was so very different from the English landscape that it seemed to be worth looking at: all forests and swamps and lakes and bridges, until you could see the skyscrapers crowning the distance and we went into a tunnel and came out on the other side in New York City.

New York, New York

A quick one to let you all know we've arrived safely in New York and successfully navigated the subway to our hostel. Oz is waiting in line to check us in, as they wouldn't let us when we first arrived and now there's a queue. Bit of a pain seeing as we got here just before 4 and were planning to go to the Natural History Museum this afternoon, but seeing as it shuts in just over an hour's time and costs $11 to get in, I don't think we'll be doing that now. 

The train here was pretty good, easy to get on and off, lots of legroom and space to recline the chairs. So I think we'll be ok on our subsequent journeys =)

So we're going to the Budweiser brewery on my birthday

What have we been up to in the past few days? Oddly when we're not rushing around sightseeing we tend to slow down completely, so while we've been chilling out more than in Brookline and therefore more time to blog, we've just become too lazy to do it!

On Saturday Tich and Lori were possibly coming over with the twins, so in the morning Maureen was running around writing shopping lists and shopping and tidying, and Boris was trying to mend the mower so he could cut the grass. We went to Burlington mall and got hideously lost going both there AND back. Having no map didn't really help matters. Probably it's good that Tich and Lori didn't make it over that day as we wouldn't have been there! On the way we took a wrong turning and ended up going south on the highway not north, then had to do a very convoluted turn-around. Then we got confused again and missed another turning and ended up coming to the mall from the opposite direction. On the way back we just got confused because the road was labelled north when actually it was going south, so we drove around for a bit getting even more lost before going basically back to the mall then guessing the way. Also it was raining quite torrentially by this point so we couldn't really see where we were going, apart from when a car went through a puddle when overtaking us, at which point it was like being under a tidal wave and we simply couldn't see anything at all for a scary 10 seconds.

Tich & Lori came over on Sunday instead. We were planning to go to the lake with the twins, but it was thundering so the water was shut (when they hear thunder they shut it for half an hour afterwards just in case lightning should miss all the tall trees around and strike the water and electrocute everyone in there). So we ran around the back yard with the hose instead. Oz has some pictures of me spraying the twins/getting sprayed by the twins. Possibly because I never got to run around anyone's back garden with a hose, it was very entertaining for me. 

Today we haven't been doing much of anything, apart from re-jigging some of the central part of our trip. Oz decided to read up on all the hostels we're staying in, at which point he discovered that we're booked into a hostel in Charleston, SC, whereas our train tickets take us to Charelston, WV. Not ideal. However with a little guidebook-reading and creative thinking, we've sorted it so we don't stay in Charleston at all, but go straight from DC to Cincinnati for three days, then from there to our next destination, Chicago. Oz phoned Amtrak so we have tickets, and we booked a Travelodge online (technically we're staying across the river in Kentucky, though the main body of Cincinnati is in Ohio, so that adds another state to our trip, which I am rather excited about). The timing is not ideal as we arrive in Cincinnati at 1am on the 14th August, stay overnight, then hop on the train again at 1am on the 16th. Still, our journeys on that leg were all long/at antisocial hours anyway.

Tomorrow Maureen's planning going a trip to a beach somewhere (it had a weird name and I can't remember it). Then on Wednesday we begin our journey across the USA on the train. I am excited!

PS - if anyone is desperate for us to bring them back anything in particular, please let us know. It might not be possible if you want a 5 foot tall scaled model of the Statue of Liberty - bear in mind we will be carrying everything ourselves on and off trains until we get to San Francisco - but once we get there we'll most likely be buying a suitcase to bring things back, so we can buy things there such as foodstuffs you can't get in the UK  or clothes that are dirt cheap over here, if you have any requests of that sort. Or if you are desperate for state/city-specific small things such as I *heart* NY hats then we can carry those too =)

So far the gift list is:

- Cool mug for Crin

- Bloomingdale's brown bags

- Bottle of Everclear for Ali (Texas - The only place that will legally sell it to us!)

- Pepperidge Farm goldfish (I love my cheesy snacks!)

- Baking chocolate, for brownies of course 

"I don't wanna go to bed, it's no good"

Today we picked up our rail passes and tickets from Boston South Station. We had a slight hiccup when the man told us that our tickets weren't booked and we didn't have a reference number for any of them, but then he checked again and they were attached to our passes somehow. We had to sign a slip to get our passes, our passes and all eleven tickets. By the time we'd finished there was a rather long queue of disgruntled rail travelers behind us, so we naturally made a hasty exit. Anyway, we now have in our possession the passes and 11 tickets we need to get from here to Los Angeles. Plans are underway for us to fly from Burbank to the San Francisco area via private jet, courtesy of Oz's dad. 

After the station we wandered down to the water for some seafoody lunch. Oz had lobster and I had cod, which was very fresh... perhaps a little *too* fresh ;-) (For those of you not in the Cownie family: when I first visited the USA aged 6, I complained about everything, most notably that my egg was "inside out" - the white was runny and the yolk was firm - and that my fish was "too fresh".) The place we went to was empty apart from us and one other couple, but it was very tasty. It had massive windows looking out over the water that were all open, so we had a completely open view. Oz almost managed to defenestrate his plate (it was stuck to the table so when he tried to push it away it stuck then jumped towards the window) which I found really hilarious for some reason. I think it was partly the thought that if you didn't like your food you could just throw it out of the window, plate and condiments included.

At lunch we decided that it was such a nice day and the water was so lovely that we wanted to go on a boat. (We had been planning to go to the cinema as it was meant to be thunderstormy and rainy, but the sky remained clear all day and we thought it would be a waste to spend the day in a cinema.) So we walked further around the water to Rowes Quay where there were harbour tours being advertised. We went one one of those and for 45 minutes chugged around the harbour while a recording of a nice American lady told us about the things we could see. We learned about when 2.5 tons of molasses were spilled, killing 6 people and injuring over 100 more, and about how Logan airport changed names twice and has 6 runways and occupies approximately 2900 acres. The boat was prettymuch empty and we had the whole middle deck to ourselves, so we had a lovely breezy, shady and relaxing ride around the water.  I wasn't too convinced about the educational value of the nice American lady but still, we just wanted a boat ride and we had a nice boat ride, so that's all that matters.

Afterwards we headed over to Quincy market. We went there before when it was raining but didn't really have a proper look around. I wanted a hat because my head kept getting hot when we went out in the sun, and I didn't want to get a sunburned parting at any point on this trip. We found a nice one on one of the stalls for the very reasonable price of $22. Then we T'd it home and have had a very uneventful evening, namely because we retreated upstairs just as it was declared to the boys that it was time for jammies... now three hours later they are still fussing in their room. Tomorrow we're going to attempt to go to the Science museum again. I hope we do get to go, because I remember going 14 years ago and having a fun time. I think it would be a good test of whether or not I've aged mentally 14 years in the intervening time!

Code monkey like Tab and Mountain Dew

Today we stayed at home in the morning, as Sammy was insistent that he wanted to play at home instead of going to the Museum of Science. Richard had a gig in Maine last night so he wasn't here when the boys got up, but I got up fairly early and they remained under control.

This afternoon we went to Natick mall, as Oz was itching to go to an Abercrombie & Fitch. I tried Mountain Dew, which is basically Sprite but a sort of nuclear yellow colour. It felt a bit obscene that a "Regular" was about a pint. I can't understand how Americans can possibly eat so much, because with drinks like that I feel full halfway through my meal. I think because I've been drinking so much I've actually been eating less, but there you go. 

The mall was good. I bought a t-shirt and a long sleeved top from Abercrombie, which in total cost about $60 I think. I also bought a travel alarm clock so we won't miss any of our trains, also it's so small and light that I can carry it around with me when we go out as I have no watch. Just in case Oz and I want to look in different shops, then I'll actually know what time we're meant to be meeting up again. I also bought a summery dress (in XS petite size...) because I didn't try on the one I brought before I left and it's just that bit too small. As in, it does up okay but heaven help me if I should for any reason need to take a deep breath (or perhaps drink a pint of lemonade). Oz bought a shirt and some tops, and the boys got new shoes and some toys. We managed to meet up again by accident in Macy's, then we went for pizza in the mall. 

Here is a picture of Oz in his lovely new shirt:

And the boys eating ice cream yesterday evening (Sammy in green, Jason in blue):

Tomorrow we're going to the train station to collect our rail passes and tickets. It would be good if the boys wanted to go to the Science Museum because that's vaguely nearby, but it's pretty impossible to get them to do things they don't want to do, at least not without a lot of noise...