Boston Trip & Day One (Seriously Condensed)

Hard to believe that this time yesterday we were happily driving along Route 84. It was a good trip up, with Luis asking me every 20 minutes, "Are we there yet?" Mostly he sat in the back watching Castle and I sat in front with the music on and singing with it. I mostly drove around 70 miles an hour, so it wasn't an endlessly long journey. We did hit some rush hour traffic on Route 90 but it was minor and did not last long.

Driving in Boston proper is a wholly different animal and I won't bore you with the details and multitudinous four-letter words over that, but 20 minutes to get to a place that should have been five minutes away is just nuts.

We got to our room around 1944 and that was that. No socialising (not that I'd have been good company after touring the inroads of the city), partying, no going out. We wandered downstairs, ate dinner there and then changed to go for a swim. We spent about an hour in the pool and then another half hour in the hot tub (not running all the time) before finally returning to our room.

I was ticked off that there were two kids splashing in the hot tub. They'd clear been in the pool already - other than them and the (I assume) father who wasn't swimming, there was no one else there, but the floor was covered in water. I'm not kidding. Looked like responsible parenting here...

While we were in the pool, which is a good length and width but no more than 3' deep, the kids got bored with the hot tub (or decided to torture me, take your pick) and jumped into the pool. Splashing, yelling - all the attributes one must love in children... not really. It was a horror show. Maybe it was the opening act for today...

I'll fill in a lot more details later, because now that I've emptied my bladder, eaten something and taken what I need - a hot bath, I want to go back and see the aquarium side of the area. But here is food for thought: I went out on the ocean for four hours with 200 kids - 200 incredibly compelling reasons for always using birth control - I didn't actually kill any of them. Don't think it didn't cross my mind. I begged someone on the crew to make a kid-free zone.

We came here for spring break. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I can see why - the seasons are longer in coming, certainly. At home, the foliage is fully grown in on 95% of the trees, even though the leaves have not deepened their colour to the summer darkness. Here, the trees are just budding. I was surprised on the ride up. I know Boston is north quite a difference and the spring arrives later and autumn earlier, but I never saw it so well illustrated as when we drove up yesterday. It really was quite nice!

Well, it is 15:40, so I can be heading to the T (tube? underground? train? subway? metro?) and take the two exits back to the aquarium by 16:00.